March, 20 2012, 09:32am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jackie Yodashkin
Communications Director, Freedom to Marry
jackie@freedomtomarry.org
917-620-4502
Former President Jimmy Carter Supports the Freedom to Marry
Joins Clinton, Gore, and Growing List of High-Profile Political Leaders
NEW YORK
In his newest book, NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter, former President Jimmy Carter discusses his evolution in favor of gay people's freedom to marry and affirmed in an interview with the Huffington Post that he supports the freedom to marry, stating "I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies." Carter served as the 39th president of the United States, founded the Carter Center, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and is also a Sunday School teacher.
"President Carter's support for the freedom to marry is a real-life example of practicing what you preach. He has been married for over 65 years and cherishes marriage - and the Golden Rule he has taught in Sunday School for decades says we should treat others as we want to be treated," said Evan Wolfson, founder and President of Freedom to Marry, the campaign to win marriage nationwide. "President Carter understands that the love and commitment of marriage matters to gay and lesbian couples and their loved ones, just as to non-gay couples like Rosalynn and him, and that the law should respect us all. Ending marriage discrimination helps families, while hurting no one, and that's why the President, like so many Americans, has opened his heart and changed his mind to join the majority for marriage.''
President Carter joins a swelling number of high-profile political leaders in evolving to support the freedom to marry, including his Democratic successor in the White House, Bill Clinton, and fellow Nobel laureate, Al Gore. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released earlier this month shows that nationwide support for the freedom to marry continues to surge, including significant increases among African Americans, Independents, Republicans, southerners, and blue-collar workers. The poll confirms that the freedom to marry is already solidly supported by Democratic, Hispanic, and Catholic voters, and that in every region of the country, including the South, support for the freedom to marry is either equal to or greater than opposition.
Recently, twenty-two Democratic Senators, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, two state attorneys general, more than half a dozen co-chairs of President Obama's reelection campaign, the chair of this year's national Democratic Convention, and other prominent Democratic officials have all publicly endorsed Freedom to Marry's call to add a freedom to marry plank to the 2012 Democratic Party Platform. Freedom to Marry is urging other Americans to join them on its Democrats: Say I Do online petition, launched in February.
Freedom to Marry is the gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide. Headed by Evan Wolfson, one of America's leading civil rights advocates and lawyers, Freedom to Marry brings new resources and a renewed context of urgency and opportunity to this social justice movement.
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