Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, endorsed same-sex marriage Wednesday, making her possibly the fourth Senate Republican to do so, if one counts Susan Collins of Maine, who led the fight to repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ban on gays in the military.
The others are Mark Kirk of Illinois and of course Rob Portman, the GOP heavyweight from Ohio who changed his mind after hearing from his gay son.
Here is an excerpt of her letter to Alaskans: “With the notion of marriage – an exclusive, emotional, binding ‘til death do you part’ tie – becoming more and more an exception to the rule given a rise in cohabitation and high rates of divorce, why should the federal government be telling adults who love one another that they cannot get married, simply because they happen to be gay? I believe when there are so many forces pulling our society apart, we need more commitment to marriage, not less.”
The endorsements arrive as the Supreme Court is expected any day to deliver its opinions in Hollingsworth v. Perry on California’s Prop. 8 and United States v. Windsor, dealing with the Defense of Marriage Act.
More than 100 well-known Republicans signed an amicus brief in the case. Murkowski’s endorsement reflects a rapidly shifting ground on marriage within the GOP, where as recently as 2012 party presidential nominee Mitt Romney endorsed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
Opponents of same-sex marriage have taken to calling this “the Inevitability Assumption, a quasi-Marxian or at least Hegelian view that History is beckoning in one direction and there will be no turning back.”