Has anyone changed their mind from anti-gay marriage to pro-gay marriage?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Yes.

I changed my stance at a couple of points many years ago.

1. When I realized I have enough fucking problems of my own and worrying about my own shit, than to sit around being concerned about someone else's business. (You'll change your stance on a lot of things when you get to this point)

2. When I got divorced. When this happened, and when any other hetero couple gets divorced...you lose any type of authority to be speaking of, about, or who should be married to whom. People that are divorced couldn't fucking figure it out for themselves so they have absolutely no moral, or scholarly high ground to stand upon and tell others about marriage. You failed at marriage so sit down and shut the fuck up about telling others about marriage because you are no expert.

3. I never had a religious objection to it because I'm not overtly religious. My only concern with gay marriage was that it would start a slippery slope of other strange forms of union and where does that end? Where is the bottom of that rabbit hole? I think my concern was more along seeing the institution destroyed because if you let this happen...then how can you say that something else can't happen. But really...whatever, to each his own, and I'm far too busy to even care.
 
I was up until about a year and a half ago.
I grew up in a very conservative Christian family, was homeschooled all my life, listened to talk shows every single day and had very little contact with the outside world.
This forum is what changed me.
I stumbled upon it by chance and started lurking and it was stories in this forum that made me a very different person.


Somewhat related, I found my twitter account a week ago, I hadn't used it in more than 3 years.
Started going through it and ugh it was ugly.
Burned all my old tweets with fire.
 
I was anti gay marriage until high school, 3ish years ago. Then I was reading a John Stossel book and his reasoning for people being free to marry whoever they want. And also that the government determining who can marry is a overreach from the government. It changed my mind!
 
I was raised catholic so take a guess. I didn't change until after a gay friend of mine killed himself. I feel shame that I looked down on him while he was alive to this day.
 
Nope. Always been in favor of staying out of other people's lives.

I am also pro choice because that isn't any of my business either.

Funny how people that claim to want smaller government have no problem with the government legislating control over people's lives when their lives don't fit their agenda.
 
Wow, most of you have changed for the better :')

Fake edit: Thank you for the mod changing the title, I'm really bad at it.
 
scarlet said:
It's nice reading a lot of positive comments and reactions on GAF about the gay marriage, and it makes me wonder. Does anyone here have change their mindset from being an anti gay or homophobia to supporting gay marriage? And what makes you change your mind?
Click to expand...

I went from anti-legalization to pro-legalization, if that's what you mean.

Basically due to well reasoned arguments (not screaming, name calling, or repeated shaming) I realized that I was using my religious prohibitions to justify public policy. This was at least a decade ago.
 
I was, now I am not. It isn't that I became empathetic to anyone's cause, either, because I don't really have empathy for anyone, it is just because it is the right thing to do. You can't give one set of people certain rights and deny them to others, that just doesn't make sense in the eyes of the law.
 
To steal a phrase from President Obama, my position has been evolving for the past few years to where I can only see the lack of constitutional support for preventing it.

If the state is going to allow marriage, and marriage confers rights and privileges both financial and otherwise, then the state should not be able to discriminate who gets to marry when it's 2 consenting adults. The common (though not universal) stand of the church that marriage is one man and one woman cannot be the position of the state, particularly in light of the first amendment, among others. The church is the church, it has every right to decide how it wants to conduct its own affairs and who it would allow to marry in concordance with its understanding of the Bible, but that's inherently separate from the state.

For the record, I am of the conservative Christian background. I am still active in my faith, but my politics have been trending progressive for the past few years, going back to around 2007 or thereabouts.
 
Being gay I've always been pro gay unions, though I did go through a period years ago where I thought the idea of gay marriage was a pipedream and we should instead persue a non-religious based union policy to be adopted nationwide instead, and leave marriage to the religious groups who refused to release it from their grasp. Both would be the same under the law.

But here we are... fully fledged marriage legalized. Pretty amazing. I thought the walls were too huge. Anything is possible, hu?

So while my mind was always made up, there's definitely a lot of people on my Facebook who seem to have changed their minds though. A few years ago I'd see some mildly homophobic stuff posted, and today a huge number of them have Pride Avatars thanks to Facebook's easy to use converter tool.

This entire ordeal is going to be looked back on and examined for years and years -- how rapidly mainstream America did a total 180 on their beliefs about marriage rights. I think it is going to fasttrack a lot of other attempts at bringing change to similar policies now that people see how possible the impossible is.
 
nah, a lot of my family members are homosexuals, so we've always been comfortable about the topic at hand, minus a couple asshole uncles who still think like it's 1820. More equality is always a good thing
 
When I was growing up (up into my teens) I thought homosexuality was a sin, but I also felt the majority of people sin on a daily basis from stealing, lying, doing their neighbor wrong, and etc so I never felt gay people deserved to be treated any better or worse than the rest of us.

I think the biggest change in my viewpoint was understanding that being gay isn't a choice, it's who someone is. Once I understood that, then I didn't see homosexuality as a sin anymore, just a biological difference. Also, around that time derogatory gay slang started to feel like nails on a chalkboard and I didn't like hearing or speaking them anymore.

Being a black person, I sympathized with what gay people were going through. I was surprised to find out that many in the gay and black community were at odds with each other. I thought we would automatically be on the same side. But I think the deep Christian religious roots combined with the machinist hip-hop culture has made it slow for the black community to openly accept the gay movement. I also think some in the gay community made the mistake of minimizing slavery and institutional racism that black people have had to deal with in this country. Gays have been persecuted throughout history, but it's easier for a gay person to "hide" their orientation than a black person to hide the color of their skin. Also, slavery and institutional racism have had long-term socio-economic impacts that have affected entire black families for generations. So I think minimizing that struggle rubbed some black people the wrong way.

Either way I'm glad that it seems we have all moved forward. On my Facebook feed I had a ton of friends from all backgrounds across all colors lines celebrating the news. I think the younger generations are definitely more open-minded and as more people die-off from the pre-civil rights era, we'll be in much better shape.

Honestly this has been one of the best weeks ever. In one week the confederate flag is coming down, Obamacare is standing, and marriage equality has been affirmed by the highest court in the land. There's been a lot of black people getting beat ups/shot by cops, but it's finally getting some real attention and rogue cops/departments are starting to be held accountable. I can honestly say I'm having real hope for this country again.
 
The Chosen One said:
When I was growing up (up into my teens) I thought homosexuality was a sin, but I also felt the majority of people sin on a daily basis from stealing, lying, doing their neighbor wrong, and etc so I never felt gay people deserved to be treated any better or worse than the rest of us.

I think the biggest change in my viewpoint was understanding that being gay isn't a choice, it's who someone is. Once I understood that, then I didn't see homosexuality as a sin anymore, just a biological difference. Also, around that time derogatory gay slang started to feel like nails on a chalkboard and I didn't like hearing or speaking them anymore.

Being a black person, I sympathized with what gay people were going through. I was surprised to find out that many in the gay and black community were at odds with each other. I thought we would automatically be on the same side. But I think the deep Christian religious roots combined with the machinist hip-hop culture has made it slow for the black community to openly accept the gay movement. I also think some in the gay community made the mistake of minimizing slavery and institutional racism that black people have had to deal with in this country. Gays have been persecuted throughout history, but it's easier for a gay person to "hide" their orientation than a black person to hide the color of their skin. Also, slavery and institutional racism have had long-term socio-economic impacts that have affected entire black families for generations. So I think minimizing that struggle rubbed some black people the wrong way.
Click to expand...

How have some gay people minimized slavery and racism?
 
Korey said:
How have some gay people minimized slavery and racism?
Click to expand...

I saw most of it around when Prop 8 was approved in California in 2008. There was nastiest all around. Can't believe it's been almost 7 years since then.

But thankfully yes I haven't heard anything like that recently.
 
I apparently convinced my mother to vote in favour of it, without intention, during a phone conversation we had.

Which is kinda funny, when I'm essentially anti state sanctioned marriage in the first place.
 
I grew up in a household of old hippies that taught me to treat everybody equally with love and respect. I never really had a choice in the matter. I can kind of empathize with people who grew up in the opposite side and were taught gay people are gross or whatever, as a kid you really don't have a choice and for the most part you trust your parents completely. I really respect people who have been able to change their views on the subject of gay marriage (or racial intolerance, or any other kind of hate) because it is a hard thing to do after growing up with it.

I remember a story of when I was maybe 9 years old, playing basketball in the park with jr high and high school kids. One older kid kept calling me a lesbian (I still have no idea why) and I went home and asked my dad "what's a lesbian?" He told me "it's just another word for person"... I wasn't the sharpest kid ever but I knew that it wasn't an exact synonym because the older kid was using it as an insult. I kept bothering my dad about it and he finally told me something like "it's a woman who likes women instead of guys, but it doesn't mean anything bad and it's not an insult. They are just people like I said, also that kid is a moron." It's paraphrase because this was 20+ years ago but I still remember it. My dad was pretty cool back then.

Not exactly on topic but whatever lol, always supported gay people since I knew what gay was, thanks to having pretty cool parents. Wish everyone grew up in an inclusive environment.
 
vern said:
I grew up in a household of old hippies that taught me to treat everybody equally with love and respect. I never really had a choice in the matter. I can kind of empathize with people who grew up in the opposite side and were taught gay people are gross or whatever, as a kid you really don't have a choice and for the most part you trust your parents completely. I really respect people who have been able to change their views on the subject of gay marriage (or racial intolerance, or any other kind of hate) because it is a hard thing to do after growing up with it.

I remember a story of when I was maybe 9 years old, playing basketball in the park with jr high and high school kids. One older kid kept calling me a lesbian (I still have no idea why) and I went home and asked my dad "what's a lesbian?" He told me "it's just another word for person"... I wasn't the sharpest kid ever but I knew that it wasn't an exact synonym because the older kid was using it as an insult. I kept bothering my dad about it and he finally told me something like "it's a woman who likes women instead of guys, but it doesn't mean anything bad and it's not an insult. They are just people like I said, also that kid is a moron." It's paraphrase because this was 20+ years ago but I still remember it. My dad was pretty cool back then.

Not exactly on topic but whatever lol, always supported gay people since I knew what gay was, thanks to having pretty cool parents. Wish everyone grew up in an inclusive environment.
Click to expand...

lol your dad is awesome. Tell him someone on the internet said he's awesome.
 
Not really. My elementary/high school was super progressive and we had 2, albeit non-openly acknowledged, gay teachers. Some kids would poke fun at them the majority would consider it in bad taste.

I made my first gay friend around 2 years ago. He has a really nice guy and super hilarious. So nope.
 
No. I think as early as I started having an opinion on gay marriage my stance was, "I don't care; if they want to they should be able to."

I do remember in college saying gays should just focus on getting civil unions because that's the best they'd get, but I changed my opinion soon after and I'm glad the community and its supporters didn't take that attitude. Anything less than marriage would be unequal.
 
I was raised in a Republican evangelical family, so of course. The first time I ever started to think of homosexuality as something that was an inherent trait and not a sinful choice was due to a high school assembly presentation where an anti-bullying motivational speaker asked people to raise their hands if they woke up in the morning and thought "Gee, I think I'm going to be attracted to the opposite gender today" as opposed to just instinctively knowing it. Of course some douches raised their hands and laughed and then he called them out, but I had never thought of sexuality in that way previously; I never thought of my own heterosexuality since it was just default, and it wasn't until after that that I started to realize that homosexuality could be someone else's default.
 
I have a gay uncle and he is the kindest, coolest person I know so I grew up being supportive of gay people as he made it clear that *gasp* they are just people. Growing up with diversity leads to being a more understanding person and I've become to realize how lucky I am to have such a supportive, generally open-minded family.

As for marriage specifically my mother and step dad eloped without getting married by a pastor or priest of any nature so I never saw marriage as a religion intuition to begin with.
 
This thread is fascinating. Thank you everyone for sharing your responses and histories. A thread like this is like a time capsule for future generations to see the attitudes of the time.
Zulithe said:
Being gay I've always been pro gay unions, though I did go through a period years ago where I thought the idea of gay marriage was a pipedream and we should instead persue a non-religious based union policy to be adopted nationwide instead, and leave marriage to the religious groups who refused to release it from their grasp. Both would be the same under the law.

But here we are... fully fledged marriage legalized. Pretty amazing. I thought the walls were too huge. Anything is possible, hu?

So while my mind was always made up, there's definitely a lot of people on my Facebook who seem to have changed their minds though. A few years ago I'd see some mildly homophobic stuff posted, and today a huge number of them have Pride Avatars thanks to Facebook's easy to use converter tool.

This entire ordeal is going to be looked back on and examined for years and years -- how rapidly mainstream America did a total 180 on their beliefs about marriage rights. I think it is going to fasttrack a lot of other attempts at bringing change to similar policies now that people see how possible the impossible is.
Click to expand...
damn that's gotta feel good.
 
My parents are Christain but they've never thought it was their place to tell other's how to live their lives and as a result I've never been anti-gay marriage since doing so would go against what I'd been raised up to treat others. Having outwardly gay friends as I got older made me care more about the issue though, so I guess like a few others here I went from 'neutral but don't see why not' to pro.

It's ironic despite not seeing Australia as nearly as tied-down to religion as the US is that we're still far behind in marriage equality.
 
My parents then, and still now, would casually and frequently toss around faggot and homo to describe someone (i.e. a not-manly man) yet told me gays and lesbians were people who deserved all the rights anyone else had and people should "mind their fucking business" about worrying about gay marriage and if you hate someone for being gay then you're a shitty hateful person.

Bizarre as hell, looking back on it, but I managed to successfully take the right lessons and ignore the wrong ones from that.
 
I don't think I was ever anti-gay marriage. A bit homophobic maybe, because my peers said things were gay a lot, but as soon as I actually met gay people (when I was 12 or 13 - I will say this was on the Internet with people who were much older than me) I dropped that shit hard and would snap at my family for doing it.

I'm pretty sure as soon as the concept of gay marriage entered my brain I was supportive of it, even when my parents weren't. They both support it now (my dad just officiated a gay wedding) but I think there's still some lingering hesitance there. but their hearts are in the right place and I think they've always been pretty open-minded people.
 
I have always been in a weird middle ground where I tend to get bombarded by both sides. My background has me leaning against it, but I realize it is none of my business nor is it very loving to revoke a basic human right.
 
Can't say I've ever been against it, I do come from a pretty religious background but as a kid the convo didn't really pop up much at all. As a pre-teen/teen I remember watching the news with my dad and him telling me some of the nicest people he's worked with are gay and that we should just leave them to do whatever they wanted. So yeah, that probably stopped me from being a dumbass about it. So it's more like I went from being indifferent about it to starting to fully support it.

Now being transphobic, that took a while to stop being so damn bigoted about.
 
I am a believer in liberty and freedom to choose. every human being has the same rights that I claim for myself, i doesn't matter about my person option it a right of all free people
 
I perhaps had a very weak not complete pro stance when I started college. Just due to lack of thinking and exposure to the issue. Once I thought about it it was a no brainer.

Even the I was always pro all the civil rights but somehow thought a form of civil Union should be fine.
 
I did. It was based on how I was raised, and the religion I grew up in. I recently thought about it and decided to think for myself. I'm big on personal freedom, so of course I would be for this. It doesn't effect me at all(now that I have all my wedding booked already).
The recently being the day it became legal. I never cared enough to think about it.
 
Oddly, although I was against people being gay, I was never against gay marriage. I just thought it wouldn't count in the eyes of God anyway.
 
I was for gay marriage but not an activist at all. Very nuetral, mainly because I wouldn't fight to save straight marriage either lol.

but now i'm thinking, how the fuck was it legally bannable?
 
Me

I was anti-gay marriage when I was a religious teen. Now that I've grown up and realized that religion is a man made entity and that the Abrahmic god probably does not exist, I'm pro-personal freedom and pro-gay rights.

The ruling by the SCOTUS was a major victory for modern civilization.
 
I was raised in a fundamentalist sect of Christianity so I was generally anti-gay marriage (and anti-gay people in general) till I was about 14. That was around the time I really started questioning my faith, but in general I kinda just decided it didn't matter and it wasn't for me to decide.

Sometime after high school I actually started giving a shit and decided to be pro gay-rights and marriage after getting over myself and realizing everyone deserves to be treated with the same respect.

My family still bugs me about it quite frequently.
 
fizzik said:
I was anti-marriage-equality when I was like nine years old and had no perspective or knowledge.

Then life and perspective happened.
Click to expand...

Funny, I remember being 6 years old and asking my parents if a guy could marry another guy. They said yes, of course. Parents and their opinions influence a lot
 
Zeyphersan said:
Funny, I remember being 6 years old and asking my parents if a guy could marry another guy. They said yes, of course. Parents and their opinions influence a lot
Click to expand...

Yep. My parents said gay people are pure evil and will drag me down to hell if I befriend them. Believed that shit for a long time.

Parental influence goes a long way.
 
I know it doesn't quite count; but I remember when I was about 11, in primary school, I started to become consciously attracted to other boys. At some point, I wrote a list in my school diary of all the things about myself I didn't like, that I wanted to improve. Things like shyness, reading more, and I still remember to this day slowly writing in those painful three letters... I still hate those three letters to this day. It was a horrid realisation that made me hate myself. That would begin 6 years of schooling, afraid at all times of anyone discovering the truth, and having to hide my red faced anxiety whenever anyone brought up the notion of being gay, of "faggots!!!" or of girlfriends etc. Constantly in fear every minute of 6 years of my life (and beyond).

So I respect what intolerant people are going through, because even I had to get through my own intolerance of myself. I had to learn from nothing but my own reflection and intelligence that there was nothing wrong with me. It took what felt like forever, and I've honestly been tired ever since. Hating yourself takes a lot out of you, as does clawing your way back.

I just hope more and more people who have sincere religious beliefs can find their own strength to question what they have believed for so long and maybe claw their way back so that they take some of the burden off other young impressionable gay people like my eleven-year-old self.

And that we never chose to be gay (fucking hell do I still deep down wish I wasn't) but maybe we could choose to marry who we love.
 
Despite growing up Baptist, I didn't have it out for gay people or their rights. I didn't know many people who were out but I still just felt that people should have similar rights to myself if it was legal and that's what they wanted. I definitely got more into outright defending gay rights as I exited college though.
 
I was anti-gay until I was around 14 or so. Then I met a fellow Gaffer on the official Nintendo forum. Be became great friends and then he told me he was gay. That's when I knew that gay people were like everyone else.

I studied in an adventist school, so they would brainwash us into thinking it was a terrible sin. I really did harbor anger towards gay people no thanks to them.
 
Can't say I was ever "anti-gay marriage" exclusively. For a time I was just "anti-marriage" and believed it needed to be abolished completely from legal designations. But I realized I was being an obnoxious pedantic atheist who just held disdain for anything that could be seen as having religious implications.
 
When I was young I couldn't care less, but now I'm anti. I have nothing against gays though. They are people just like me, with all our faults. :-)
 
I'm ashamed to admit that about 5-6 years ago I was a closed minded buffoon on this subject. One day I heard my mom crying about something. I asked her what was going on and she told me my sister came out and told her she was a lesbian. In about a tenth of a second I changed my attitude towards gay people and gay marriage. I told my mother that she shouldn't be crying but she should accept my sister for who she is.

I called my sister who I am extremely close with and strangely she wasn't answering my calls and it hit me that she was afraid to talk to me. I sent her a text message telling her that I love and support her no matter her sexual orientation. She called me 2 minutes later crying and telling me she was scared to tell me because of my hardline stance on gay rights. I let her know that she means more to me than a stupid argument about sexual preference.

Soon after that I met her girlfriend and we became good friends. I will also say lesbians are the best wingmen ever lol.

My mother soon warmed up to my sister and her being a lesbian (after I fought tooth and nail with her on the subject. ) and she now has my sister and her girlfriend come for holidays and dinner Whenever they want .

I am so ashamed that I was against gay rights and marriage.
 
At first I didn't care since it effected like 3% of the population but seemed to be what everyone was arguing about, so originally I wasn't really against it but not really for it as I felt there was more important stuff to deal and give mind share to, but eventually it seemed like the issue would remain at the forefront until it was resolved, though that would take forever, but at that point it was something I actively supported. Thus I was rather pleased with the Supreme Court ruling that just ended the entire issue instantly. Hopefully by next year this won't even be an issue, though I suppose I'm being rather optimistic.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Dave Grohl announces daughter outside of his marriage
2 3
143
9K
Dr.Morris79 replied
Has anyone tried Meta AI Glasses?
17
256
StabbyStabStabStabStab replied
Anyone broken their shoulder before?
Social 
17
679
Highway Star replied
Anyone here look and feel younger than their age?
2
86
2K
Hazzard4life replied
Someone burned $1.38 million in crypto to state that China has deployed its own mind control Neuralink
47
3K
Wandering Leopard replied
Top Bottom