Former McCain campaign chief endorses same-sex marriage

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Former McCain campaign chief strategist Steve Schmidt told the Washington Blade in an interview last week that he is “personally supportive” of same-sex marriage rights. Schmidt, who spoke to the Log Cabin Republicans at the Republican National Convention last year, added that he thinks Americans are “troubled” when they see Republicans “trying to stigmatize” the gay community:

“I’m personally supportive of (marriage) equality for gay couples and I believe that it will happen over time,” he said. “I think that more and more Americans are insistent that, at a minimum, gay couples should be treated with respect and when they see a political party trying to stigmatize a group of people who are hardworking, who play by the rules, who raise decent families, they’re troubled by it.” <…>

“I think the Republican Party should not be seen by a broad majority of the electorate as focused with singularity on issues like gay marriage,” he said. “The attitudes of voters about gay marriage and about domestic partnership benefits for gay couples are changing very rapidly and for voters under the age of 30, they are completely disconnected from what has been Republican orthodoxy on these issues.”

Schmidt, who is a California resident, also told the Blade that he voted against Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage ballot initiative that McCain supported as a candidate.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/26/schmidt-gay-marriage/

Good for him.