On Thursday, Jon Huntsman, a former 2012 Republican presidential nominee and former governor of Utah, wrote an op-ed for The American Conservative in which he voiced his own support for marriage equality and urged other conservatives to do the same.
"I’ve been married for 29 years. My marriage has been the greatest joy of my life. There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love," Huntsman wrote in the op-ed. While Huntsman has been criticized in the past for his lack of action on LGBT issues, it was a huge step for him to publicly support civil unions for same-sex couples during his time as governor in one of the most conservative states in the nation. At the time, 70% of voters in Utah opposed civil unions. In 2008, he signed into law the "domestic-partnership registry," which allowed counties and municipalities to extend employee benefits to "dependent or interdependent adult designees" (i.e., same-sex unmarried partners).
Jon Huntsman is one among an ever-growing number of conservatives who have come out for marriage equality. In 2010, former-Republican National Committee head Ken Mehlman came out as gay, a particularly surprising revelation considering he had been the head of George W. Bush's 2004 presidential campaign. Before him, former vice president Dick Cheney and former first lady Laura Bush had both voiced their support for marriage equality. More recently, former Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed his support for marriage equality. There are even more conservatives on the state level who have voted to pass marriage equality in their state. Every time a conservative political leader comes out for marriage equality, the media reacts as if it is the first time such a thing has happened. However each time, it becomes less and less of an isolated incident. It is important that the media not sensationalize each conservative but rather present them as an ever-growing group.