Sen. Kerry now supports gay marriage

BOSTON, July 22 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has changed his mind on gay marriage and now says he supports legalizing it.

Kerry quietly announced the shift in his views in March in the response an aide made to a Boston Globe survey of Massachusetts congressional representatives on gay marriage and the U.S. Defense of Marriage Act. The Globe said the senator was more quiet than he may have intended to be, since an editorial mistake at the newspaper during condensation of the March article led to his title and first name being left out of the article on the survey.

On July 10, he wrote an op-ed piece for the Globe supporting gay marriage and President Barack Obama's right to change his mind on the issue.

When Kerry was the Democratic nominee for president in 2004, Massachusetts had just become the first state in the country where same-sex marriage was legal. At the time, he said he supported civil unions but not gay marriage.

Kerry told the Globe Thursday he did not think he had deliberately kept his change of heart quiet, saying he answered the survey question honestly.

"What was the question? 'Do you support gay marriage?' What was the answer? 'Yes,'" he said. "I mean, I can't -- I'm sorry the Globe didn't write more about it or say something about it, but that's not my doing. I said 'yes.' And then I voluntarily, spontaneously wrote an op-ed, because I thought it was important for people to understand the value of the journey that I took."