We can all evolve, if we try

Just look at Pres. Biden

Ten years ago, then-Vice President Joe Biden said on “Meet the Press:”

“I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.”

At the time, aides said that his remarks were not scripted, and a scramble ensued. Then-Pres. Barack Obama at the time had said his views were “evolving.” Then-Vice Pres. Biden’s statements went quite a way beyond that. At the time, just six states (including Connecticut) and the District of Columbia had codified marriage equality.

Now look at us.

Yesterday, Pres. Biden signed into law the Respect for Marriage Act, and you can read the text here. The law protects the unions of same-sex and interracial couples, and if you think that latter group was safe, read this.

This overturns the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act, a silly law with a silly name that did precisely nothing but cause pain, kind of like the Clinton-era Telecommunications Act, but that’s another whine.

If you find yourself at sixes and sevens over this, unclench. I grew up thinking homosexuality was an abomination, though that is not the word I used. But then I examined my Book, and found myself incapable of cleaving to that exclusive line of thinking or judgment. We can all evolve. Biden evolved over time, and if he can do that, so can we.