During heated debate on the Nevada state Senate floor on whether to repeal an amendment to the state Constitution which bans gay marriage, Senator Kelvin Atkinson, a Democrat from North Las Vegas, publicly revealed for the first time that he is gay. "I'm black. I'm gay," Atkinson said, according to the Las Vegas Sun. "I know this is the first time many of you have heard me say that I am a black, gay male." Ultimately, the Nevada Senate voted 12-9 to repeal the amendment and to replace it with one recognizing gay marriage in the state.
During his speech on the Senate floor, Atkinson said that legalizing same-sex marriage would hold no consequences for heterosexual marriages.
"If this hurts your marriage, then your marriage was in trouble in the first place," he said.
Atkinson is a single father and Chicago native who has served on the Nevada state legislature for over a decade, according to ABC News, and currently serves as Chairman of the Nevada Senate Commerce, Labor and Energy Committee.
His revelation came as the climax of an hour-long debate on the Senate floor already marked by emotional appeals. The vote was almost perfectly split across party lines, with a single Republican straying from the caucus consensus and joining the Democrats to vote in favor of the bill. Many of the senators who voted yes spoke of their decision in the same breath as their religious commitments. Another who voted against the bill pointed to President Barack Obama's "evolving" beliefs on gay marriage - the president was said to oppose it until only about a year ago - in decrying efforts to paint opponents to the bill as "intolerant" or "unenlightened".
The vote and Atkinson's revelation came in the midst of a national legislative battle over gay marriage. As the nation waits for the Supreme Court to decide on the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8, several states are moving ahead with their own legislative effort on the issue. Rhode Island's Senate Judiciary Committee and Delaware's House vote today on same-sex marriage bills, while Minnesota and Illinois are also in the midst of deciding whether or not to allow gay couple to marry under state law.
Previously in 2000 as well as in 2002, voter in Nevada showed their support for an amendment to their constitution defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. If the bill legalizing same-sex marriage passes, it will have to pass again in 2015 and then come up for ratification by voter in 2016.
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