Colin Powell Supports Marriage Equality, Says of Gay Friends: “They are as stable a family as my family is.”
Retired Gen. Colin Powell — the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff whose voice in 1993 in support of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was used by those fighting to uphold the law in Congress and the courts up until its repeal in 2010 — is as strong a sign as any of the changing views of the country on marriage equality.
Today, in an interview clip just released, the former secretary of state told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer of same-sex couples that he knows, “[T]hey are as stable a family as my family is … [a]nd so I don’t see any reason not to say that they should be able to get married.”
Powell served as secretary of state under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, and his name was raised often as a potential Republican presidential or vice presidential candidate — although he declined interest in either role.
The news comes two weeks after President Obama announced on May 9 that he had “evolved” on the issue and now believes that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. Blitzer referenced Powell’s role in “installing” DADT and then asked, “Are you with the President in supporting gay marriage?”
Powell responded, “I have no problem with it. And, it was the Congress that imposed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ though it was certainly my position and my recommendation to get us out of an even worse outcome that could have occurred, as you’ll recall. But as I’ve thought about gay marriage, I know a lot of friends who are individually gay but are in partnerships with loved ones, and they are as stable a family as my family is, and they raise children. And so I don’t see any reason not to say that they should be able to get married.”
WATCH (h/t Think Progress):
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