House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has
said she supports an effort to add marriage equality to the 2012
Democratic Party platform, gay weekly Metro
Weekly reported.
On Monday, Freedom to Marry launched
the Democrats:
Say I Do campaign, which calls on the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) to endorse marriage equality in this year's platform.
The DNC will ratify the document during its national convention,
which begins September 3 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“Leader Pelosi supports this
language,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill told Metro Weekly.
“Freedom to Marry is proud to have
Leader Pelosi joining our call to put the Democratic Party squarely
on record in support for the freedom to marry as part of the national
platform,” said Evan Wolfson, founder and president of Freedom to
Marry. “A strong majority of Democrats and Independents support
the freedom to marry, and standing up for all families is not just
the right thing to do morally, it's also right to do politically.”
(Related: Evan
Wolfson, Brian Brown debate gay marriage.)
Freedom to Marry's proposed language
also includes support for repealing the Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA), the law that bars federal agencies from recognizing the legal
marriages of gay couples, and opposition to constitutional amendments
defining marriage as a heterosexual union.
The DNC's 2008 platform included
support for repealing DOMA and called for equal protections without
specifically mentioning the issue of marriage equality.
In contrast, the 2008 Republican Party
platform included support for DOMA and placing a ban on marriages
between people of the same gender in the U.S. Constitution.