How one Advocate interview got former Rep. Jim Kolbe to be honest about his sexuality - Silicon Valley Business Journal

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Jim Kolbe, who died this month at 80, would have been pleased to see the Respect for Marriage Act become law. Twenty-six years ago, he had to answer for his own vote in the other direction.

Editor's note: Every journalist has stories that will forever be with them, that changed their careers or made them look at a situation differently. This is the story of one of those stories.

A quick rewind: in 1996, Republicans were more than a year into their leadership of the House of Representatives, a monumental shift given Democrats’ four-decade-long control of the House. Three years before, Hawaii’s Supreme Court ruled that state law limiting marriage to a union of a man and a woman was unconstitutional.

, have done a 180. In 2001, only 35% of the public said they were in favor of same-sex marriages. A decade later, public opinion for and against same-sex marriage was tied at 46% each. Where just one Republican voted against DOMA in the House and not a one voted that way in the Senate, this year 39 House Republicans voted for the final version of the Respect for Marriage Act while 12 Senate Republicans supported the bill. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden signed it into law.

As an openly-gay Republican, Kolbe got re-elected to Congress in 1996. He kept winning until he decided against another re-election bid in 2006. He became a consultant on international trade and advocated for Congress to be more fiscally responsible.

 

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