David Blankenhorn, a prominent gay
marriage opponent, has reversed course, saying “the time has come
for me to accept gay marriage.”
Blankenhorn wrote of his change of
heart in an op-ed titled How My View on Gay Marriage Changed
published Friday in The
New York Times.
In 2010, Blankenhorn, the founder and
president of the conservative group Institute for American Values,
served as an expert witness in favor of California's gay marriage ban
at the trial challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8.
“I opposed gay marriage believing
that children have the right, insofar as society makes it possible,
to know and to be cared for by the two parents who brought them into
this world,” he wrote in his opinion piece. “Whatever one's
definition of marriage, legally recognizing gay and lesbian couples
and their children is a victory for basic fairness.”
Blankenhorn argued against gay nuptials
in his 2007 book The Future of Marriage.
In his Prop 8 testimony, Blankenhorn
signaled a shift in his opposition, saying that legalizing gay
marriage would “improve the well-being of gay and lesbian
households and their children” and that marriage equality in the
United States would make the country “more American.”