Republican political strategist Mary
Matalin appears to have softened her opposition to gay marriage.
Appearing Sunday on ABC's This Week,
Matalin, who has previously defended so-called traditional marriage,
argued that growing support for marriage equality is a matter of
“common sense.”
“Forty eight percent now support gay
marriage in the country,” host George Stephanopoulos commented.
“Well, because Americans have common
sense. There are important constitutional, biological, theological,
ontological questions relative to homosexual marriage. People who
live in the real world say the greater threat to the civil order is
heterosexuals who don't get married and are making babies. That's an
epidemic in crisis proportions. That is irrefutably more problematic
for our culture than homosexuals getting married. I find this
important dancing on the head of a pin argument, but in real life,
looking down 30 years from now, real people understand the
consequences of so many babies being born out of wedlock to the
economy and to the morality of the country,” she said. (The video
is embedded on this page. Visit
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Another conservative on the panel,
columnist George Will, noted
there “is something like an emerging consensus” on the issue.
“Quite literally, the opposition to
gay marriage is dying: It's old people,” he said.