Marriage Equality. It’s Just Not True."
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And as recently as 2006, Sanders opposed marriage equality for his adopted home state of Vermont. The senator may have evolved earlier than his primary opponents. But the fact remains that, in the critical early days of the modern marriage equality movement, Sanders was neutral at best and hostile at worst.
Ten years later, Sanders took a similarly cautious approach to same-sex marriage. In 2006, he took a stand against same-sex marriage in Vermont, stating that he instead endorsed civil unions. Sanders told reporters that he was “comfortable” with civil unions, not full marriage equality. (To justify his stance, Sanders complained that a battle for same-sex marriage would be too “divisive.”) At the time, he also opposed a federal anti-gay-marriage amendment—but so did his Republican opponent for the Senate seat, Richard Tarrant, who also supported civil unions. With a wide lead in the polls and little at stake, Sanders declined to differentiate himself from his opponent by taking the lead on gay rights.
Earlier in his political career, Sanders was even more indifferent toward gay rights: As mayor of Burlington in 1990, Sanders told an interviewer that LGBT rights were not a “major priority” for him. Asked if he would support a bill to protect gays from job discrimination, Sanders responded, “probably not.” That was 25 years ago. Sanders has, no doubt, come a long way since then: The senator endorsed Vermont’s successful Marriage Equality Act in 2009 and has cheered the Supreme Court’s marriage rulings. And he is co-sponsoring the Equality Act, a sweeping federal LGBT rights bill that advocacy groups place high on their post-marriage agenda.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/10/05/bernie_sanders_on_marriage_equality_he_s_no_longtime_champion.html
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