2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Has Sanders really always supported marriage equality [View all]RichVRichV
(885 posts)that wanted to abolish all laws that promote a sort of morality on people, including specifically mentioning homosexuality. He then voted against a law that specifically prohibited gay marriage in 1996 (sounds pretty definitive to me).
He then de-evolved his position to being against gay marriage by 2000. And then once again evolved to being for it again at some point leading up to today.
Yep, that makes much more sense than he was just for it all along.
You can claim everyone you knew voted against DOMA for whatever reason you want, but the simple fact is if you don't have a direct statement from Bernie himself on why he voted against it then all we have to go on is the vote itself. A vote against prohibiting gay marriage is a vote for allowing gay marriage. They are functionally equal statements. 'Allow' is an antonym of 'prohibit'. So unless you have proof otherwise, Bernie has been at a bare minimum for gay marriage since at least 1996. That's when he officially went on record with a stance.