David Blankenhorn, a national figure in the movement against same-sex marriage, has recanted his opposition, saying “the time has come for me to accept gay marriage and emphasize the good that it can do.” 
 
 Mr. Blankenhorn, the founder and president of the Institute for American Values, wrote an influential book that argued against same-sex marriage in 2007, called “The Future of Marriage,” and served as an expert witness against the constitutional challenge to California’s Proposition 8, which limited marriage to heterosexuals. On Friday, he said in an opinion article for The New York Times, published online, and in an hour-long documentary on NPR that his concerns about same-sex marriage remained, but that “the time for denigrating or stigmatizing same-sex relationships is over.” 
 
 “I opposed gay marriage believing that children have the right, insofar as society makes it possible, to know and to be cared for by the two parents who brought them into this world,” he wrote in the article. He said he still held that conviction. But he added, “Whatever one’s definition of marriage, legally recognizing gay and lesbian couples and their children is a victory for basic fairness.” 
 
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 Mr. Blankenhorn’s onetime allies said they were troubled but unimpressed. 
 
 “He’s dead wrong,” said the Rev. Jim Garlow, senior pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, Calif. “I am a student of history. Christianity has made clear that marriage is between one man and one woman. And what we have seen is that when you change marriage for some, you change marriage for all.” 
 
 The focus on same-sex marriage has grown rapidly in recent years, both legislatively and legally. Two requests for review of same-sex marriage rulings in federal courts, including the Proposition 8 case, are headed to the Supreme Court this summer. Other cases are being argued in lower courts, and referendum initiatives will be on the ballots in November in four states — Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington. 
 
 Last month, President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage after nearly two years of saying that his views on the topic had been evolving. Polls show public opinion has also been shifting rapidly toward acceptance of it, although about 30 states have passed constitutional amendments in recent years defining marriage as between only a man and a woman. 
 
 Six states — Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont — as well as the District of Columbia permit same-sex marriage. Nine others — California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Oregon and Washington — allow comprehensive domestic partnerships or civil unions granting same-sex couples full rights except in name. 
 
 Mr. Blankenhorn, who was raised in the South and attended Harvard, had long stood out among opponents of same-sex marriage because he did not invoke a biblical or religious justification and did not oppose civil unions for gay men and lesbians. Instead, he argued that marriage was society’s most important institution and had in recent decades come under attack, and that same-sex marriage was only adding to its decline. 
 
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 He said that he had long hoped the debate over same-sex marriage would center on parenthood, not private relationships, but that in the public’s mind today the issue was simply about equality for gay men and lesbians — in other words, civil rights. 
 
 “And to my deep regret,” he wrote, “much of the opposition to gay marriage seems to stem, at least in part, from an underlying antigay animus. To me, a Southerner by birth whose formative moral experience was the civil rights movement, this fact is profoundly disturbing.” 
 
 Mr. Blankenhorn has long had his fans in the pro-gay-rights community. Andrew Sullivan, who writes for The Daily Beast, wrote on Friday that Mr. Blankenhorn was “perhaps the most clearly decent, intellectually honest, nonhomophobic opponent of marriage equality.” He praised him for his switch. 
 
 Peter S. Sprigg, the senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council in Washington, which opposes same-sex marriage, said Mr. Blankenhorn’s new position was unfortunate but was, in his view, a result of social pressure and his eagerness not to be seen as antigay. 
 
 “He has thrown marriage under the bus for the sake of the homosexual movement,” Mr. Sprigg said. ||||| If you've been immersed in the marriage equality debate, you'll know who David Blankenhorn is. He is perhaps the most clearly decent, intellectually honest, non-homophobic opponent of marriage equality. He has played a huge role in elevating the debate, in getting the right to take it more seriously, and in pioneering civil discussion. Along with Jon Rauch, he really tried to find common ground, rather than polarize or hyperbolize. And I think many involved in this intellectual combat can be proud of themselves for maintaining greater civility than exists in many other emotional, personal debates. In the grass roots it can get brutal, as it can online. But the arguments we've had in person have been usually civil. Jon Corvino's book with Maggie Gallagher is an example of this, as is their dog-and-pony show on the debate circuit. 
 
 But I bury my lede. Blankenhorn has switched sides and is now in favor of marriage equality, and explains why on NPR right now. Click here for the audio. He has an essay in the NYT on the subject as well. Money quote: 
 
 I had hoped that the gay marriage debate would be mostly about marriage’s relationship to parenthood. But it hasn’t been. Or perhaps it’s fairer to say that I and others have made that argument, and that we have largely failed to persuade. In the mind of today’s public, gay marriage is almost entirely about accepting lesbians and gay men as equal citizens. And to my deep regret, much of the opposition to gay marriage seems to stem, at least in part, from an underlying anti-gay animus. To me, a Southerner by birth whose formative moral experience was the civil rights movement, this fact is profoundly disturbing. 
 
 David was a good man when he was opposed to marriage equality and he is a good man now. We need more like him. ||||| David Blankenhorn, founder of the Institute for American Values, has written a thoughtful short essay for the New York Times on why he has devoted considerable effort to defeating efforts to legalize same-sex civil marriage and why he has decided to embrace a new strategy. He notes that he had hoped that our national conversation about same-sex marriage would evolve into a broader conversation about the centrality of marriage and child-rearing, yet he sees no sign of that happening. So he concludes on the following note: 
 
 Instead of fighting gay marriage, I’d like to help build new coalitions bringing together gays who want to strengthen marriage with straight people who want to do the same. For example, once we accept gay marriage, might we also agree that marrying before having children is a vital cultural value that all of us should do more to embrace? Can we agree that, for all lovers who want their love to last, marriage is preferable to cohabitation? Can we discuss whether both gays and straight people should think twice before denying children born through artificial reproductive technology the right to know and be known by their biological parents? Will this strategy work? I don’t know. But I hope to find out. 
 
 Blankenhorn’s current position closely parallels my own. It is worth noting, however, that Blankenhorn’s new strategy actually represents a harder road than opposition to the legalization of same-sex civil marriage. Opponents of same-sex civil marriage will from time to time achieve concrete political victories. Those who want to reestablish the cultural centrality of marriage, in contrast, won’t have concrete victories to celebrate. Rather, they will have to navigate a fragmented cultural landscape in which it is crucially important to understand the difference between simple contagions and complex contagions, an idea a very good friend explained to me relatively recently. 
 
 The following is the abstract of a paper by Damon Centola and Michael Macy: 
 
 The strength of weak ties is that they tend to be long—they connect socially distant locations, allowing information to diffuse rapidly. The authors test whether this “strength of weak ties” generalizes from simple to complex contagions. Complex contagions require social afﬁrmation from multiple sources. Examples include the spread of high-risk social movements, avant garde fashions, and unproven technologies. Results show that as adoption thresholds increase, long ties can impede diffusion. Complex contagions depend primarily on the width of the bridges across a network, not just their length. Wide bridges are a characteristic feature of many spatial networks, which may account in part for the widely observed tendency for social movements to diffuse spatially. 
 
 Crudely, it is interesting to think about “wide bridges” in the context of the diffusion of various social practices. In the United States, divorce levels have decreased among college-educated women since 1980, as Kay Hymowitz has observed. Yet this hasn’t translated to non-college-educated women, in part, presumably, because we don’t (to overgeneralize) have “wide bridges” in U.S. society between the college-educated and the non-college-educated. 
 
 This has important implications for cultural conservatives. Family disruption in the United States is increasingly pervasive, yet it remains concentrated in groups that tend not to see elite non-black and non-Latino conservatives as culturally credible. That is part why the message Blankenhorn is articulating isn’t resonating with the constituencies for whom it is (arguably) most relevant. There are, of course, many cultural conservatives in the communities most heavily impacted by family disruption, but it’s not clear that these individuals have the kind of cultural and spiritual authority they’d need to make a significant difference, partly because social uplift is seen as primarily state-driven and not community-driven. That is, I don’t turn to the pastor or deacon to weather a family crisis. I turn to the state for transfers or for other forms of care, as alternative social networks are too weak by comparison or too overburdened. So why would the pastor or deacon hold sway? I should stress that this is a serious oversimplication, but I do think it helps explain the larger landscape. ||||| Same-Sex Marriage Decision: "Far From Over" 
 
 Even before this week's ruling in the case involving Proposition 8 which banned same-sex marriage in California, appeals of the judge's decision were expected.In response to a lawsuit filed by two gay couples who said the voter-approved ban violated their civil rights, Judge Vaughan Walker rejected every argument posed by sponsors of the ban. In his 136-page opinion, Walker wrote, "Proposition 8 perpetuates the stereotype that gays and lesbians are incapable of forming long-term loving relationships and that gays and lesbians are not good parents.""I think the critical issue here is that what you have is a district court finding after a full trial - everybody had an opportunity to be heard - an opinion that demonstrates that there is simply no basis whatsoever to continue discrimination against gay and lesbian citizens who want to marry," said David Boies, one of the lead attorneys in the lawsuit against Proposition 8.Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council and a supporter of the ban on same-sex marriage, called the decision an example of judicial activism."This issue is not going to go away," Perkins said on"I think what you have is one judge who thinks he knows - and a district level judge and an openly-homosexual judge at that - who says he knows better than not only 7 million voters in the state of California, but voters in 30 states across the nation that have passed marriage amendments. This is far from over."[Perkins referred to a February 2010 San Francisco Chronicle column which claims Walker's homosexuality was an "open secret." Walker himself has not answered questions about his sexual orientation . Nevertheless, the defense team does not plan to raise the specter of the judge's sexual orientation as they appeal his ruling to the Ninth Circuit, lawyer Jim Campbell told the Associated Press this week. "The bottom line is this case, from our perspective, is and always will be about the law and not about the judge who decides it."]When asked by Dickerson what basis the judge's sexual orientation might have on his ruling, Perkins admitted he did not know whether Walker is gay or straight, but added, "I think, you know, had this guy been, say, an evangelical preacher in his past, there would have been cries for him to step down from this case. I do think it has a bearing on the case."Perkins said the judge ignored "a lot of the social science" about the affects of same-sex couples on families, and cited a 2005 ruling by a federal district level judge that Nebaska's ban against same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, a decision that was overturned in the 8th Circuit."Certainly not only based upon the social empirical data that's out there, but on the legal basis, this is a flawed decision," Perkins said. "And as I said, it's far from over."Boies disputed Perkins on the evidence: "It's easy to sit around and debate and throw around opinions that appeal to people's fear and prejudice, [and] cite studies that either don't exist or don't say what you say they do."In a court of law you've got to come in and you've got to support those opinions, you've got to stand up under oath and cross-examination," Boies said. "And what we saw at trial is that it's very easy for the people who want to deprive gay and lesbian citizens of the right to voteto make all sorts of statements and campaign literature, or in debates where they can't be cross-examined."But when they come into court and they have to support those opinions and they have to defend those opinions under oath and cross-examination, those opinions just melt away. And that's what happened here. There simply wasn't any evidence, there weren't any of those studies. There weren't any empirical studies. That's just made up. That's junk science. It's easy to say that on television. But a witness stand is a lonely place to lie. And when you come into court you can't do that."That's what we proved: We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost," Boies said.Perkins retorted that "there is not conclusive evidence to suggest that children who grow up with two moms or two dads fare as well as children who grow up with a mom and a dad," but acknowledged that the issue of how children are impacted by same-sex relationships is "relatively new."But he did suggest that over the last 40 years marriage has been "devalued," and said there is abundant evidence to suggest public policy - such as no-fault divorce - "has truly impacted children and impacted the institution of marriage."And the judge in his ruling actually just ignored all of that and said there is no evidence that any of the policy that's been adopted on no-fault divorce and other liberal-leaning policies has impacted marriage," Perkins said. "I think anybody with a half a brain can see that the policies that have been adopted in the last 40 years have impacted marriage, and as a result have impacted the well-being of children."Boies responded, saying Judge Walker did deal with it, "and he pointed out, which is obvious, that no-fault divorce doesn't have anything to do with the issue that's here."The empirical studies that do exist and that are based on what's happened in Canada and Sweden and Spain and other countries and other states where you are able to have marriage equality, demonstrate that there is no harm. There are studies going back for 20 years that demonstrate this. The problem here is that, unlike a court, people don't stick to the facts."Thought the case is headed for an appeals court, many expect it will land before the U.S. Supreme Court. Boies predicted that the High Court will side with him."Remember, unlike abortion, the court is not creating a new legal right," he said. "This is a right that has been well recognized for 100 years in terms of the right of individuals to marry. And all that's at issue here is, can the State of California take away that right depending on the sex of your intended partner? And that issue depends exactly on what you said before: Is there a rational base for that distinction? Can you prove that it harms heterosexual marriage? Children? Can you prove it harms anybody? Why do you make these people suffer if it doesn't help anybody?"And what we proved at trial is that there simply isn't any basis, no evidence at all, to indicate that this has any harm to anybody. Indeed, all the evidence is to the contrary, that it makes those relationships more stable. Even the defendant's own witnesses admitted that there was no evidence of harm to heterosexual marriage or to children as a result of gay and lesbian marriage. Even the defendant's own experts admitted that there was great harm to homosexual couples and the children they're raising by depriving them of the stability and love of marriage."Perkins said, "We hope that sanity will reign when it does make its way to the United States Supreme Court."This is an activist decision by a district-level court who is interjecting his view over the view of not only millions of Americans who have voted on this issue, but literally the history of the human race," Perkins said.Also appearing at a roundtable discussion on the program,disputed Boies' assertion that the highest court in the land would back Walker's decision."They are asking the Supreme Court to set aside essentially the laws of 44 states, so that is an enormous stretch," Crawford said. "Now of course, the Supreme Court has taken up issues of gay rights in the past. Justice Kennedy, the key swing vote in 2003, said that states could not criminalize homosexual sex in the privacy of your bedroom. But that is an entirely different matter than saying there is a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage."In this case, Judge Walker quoted Anthony Kennedy 15 times or so" in his decision," noted. "It was a letter to him, wasn't it? Is that going to work, writing directly to Kennedy, trying to use his own words to say you have to vote with me?"Clearly this decision was a decision with an eye on appeal," said Crawford. She pointed out the narrow divisions on the court: "You have four liberals and the four conservatives and the man in the middle Anthony Kennedy who's kind of this human jump ball. What they are asking Justice Kennedy to do in this case is not only, I mean, he's got to grab the ball, take it down the court, slam it in the basket and shatter the backboard. This is something that Anthony Kennedy doesn't do. He's a very cautious justice. He doesn't like to get ahead."The same-sex ruling that he wrote in 2003, that struck down laws that criminalized homosexual sex - no one was enforcing these laws," Crawford said. "This would change the law of the nation. They would be so far ahead of public opinion, and that is why this case was controversial from the beginning."Remember, the traditional gay rights groups did not want David Boies and his conservative counterpart Ted Olsen to file this case because they think the Supreme Court is not ready. They wanted to see more states pass laws allowing same-sex marriage and then take it to the court and not put that onus and that pressure on the Supreme Court."I would not be so confident if I were David Boies," she said.
– One of the most respected opponents of gay marriage has changed his mind, arguing that too many of his political comrades are simply prejudiced against gays and lesbians, the New York Times reports. David Blankenhorn, who wrote The Future of Marriage and argued for California's Proposition 8 as an expert witness, revealed his new opinion in the Times yesterday: "Whatever one's definition of marriage, legally recognizing gay and lesbian couples and their children is a victory for basic fairness," he wrote. He also hopes that by embracing gay marriage, he can "help build new coalitions bringing together gays who want to strengthen marriage with straight people who want to do the same." Reaction is, of course, mixed: "He has thrown marriage under the bus for the sake of the homosexual movement," said Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council. Sprigg blamed Blankenhorn's position on a desire not to be seen as anti-gay. "Blankenhorn's current position closely parallels my own," writes Reihan Salam in the National Review. But "Blankenhorn's new strategy actually represents a harder road than opposition to the legalization of same-sex civil marriage," because he "won't have concrete victories to celebrate." "David was a good man when he was opposed to marriage equality and he is a good man now," writes gay marriage advocate Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast. "We need more like him." Click for the full Times piece, or Blankenhorn's op-ed.