Jun 26, 2009  |  By: Staff & Wire Reports  | COMMENTS     

WASHINGTON — A former Democratic presidential contender once opposed to same-sex marriage now supports such unions.

U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut wrote in a June 21 op-ed for The Meridan Record-Journal that he now counts himself “among the many elected officials, advocates, and ordinary citizens who support full marriage equality for same-sex couples.”

“I understand that even those who oppose discrimination might continue to find it hard to re-think the definition of marriage they grew up with,” Dodd wrote. “I know it was for me.

“But many of the things we must do to make our union more perfect — whether it’s fighting for decades to reform our health care system or struggling with a difficult moral question — are hard. They take time. And they require that, when you come to realize that something is right, you be unafraid to stand up and say it.”

When he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, Dodd said that gay and lesbian couples should have the ability to work good jobs, retire securely and visit each other in hospitals.

“They ought to have that ability in civil unions,” he said. “I don’t go so far as to call for marriage. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Dodd wrote in his June 21 op-ed that he might have changed his mind “a little late,” but he wanted to be “on the right side of history.”

“I believe that, when my daughters grow up, barriers to marriage equality for same-sex couples will seem as archaic, and as unfair, as the laws we once had against inter-racial marriage.”