By Sheryl Estrada
Caitlyn Jennerhardly supports same-gender marriage.
Jenner publicly came out as transgenderin an interview with journalist Diane Sawyer in April. However, during the season premiere of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which aired on Tuesday, she expressed lukewarm feelings toward marriage equity.
Here’s what Jenner said:
I have to admit at first, I was not for it. Ithought, ‘I’m a traditionalist.’ I kind of liked tradition, and it’s always been a man and a woman. And I’m thinking, ‘I don’t quite get it.’ But as time has gone on, I think like a lot of people on this issue have really changed their thinking here. I don’t want to stand in front of anybody’s happiness. That’s not my job. If that word ‘marriage’ is really, really that important to you, I can go with it.
“It’s funny because it sounds like you’re still kind of not-on-board with it,” DeGeneres responded.
“No, I’m on board,” Jenner said. “It is going to be pretty much the law of the land. I still feel like I’m OK with that, because I don’t want to stand on somebody’s happiness.”
DeGeneres, who is married to actress Portia De Rossi, came out as a lesbian in 1997. In a discussion with Howard Stern on his radio show Tuesday, she talked about Jenner’s views on same-gender marriage.
“She still has a judgment about gay marriage,” DeGeneres said. “And I said, ‘You’re wanting people to understand and accept you.’ This is really confusing to people.”
“Here’s a person on TV crying, ‘I want to be myself, I want to be genuine, I don’t want people to ridicule me’ and then says in the same breath, ‘Gee, gay marriage, I don’t get it,’ ” Stern said. “It’s remarkable.”
In June, Jenner, formerly referred to as Bruce, introduced herself as Caitlyn on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine, which went viral. In July, the former Olympian was selected as the recipient of the 2015 ESPY Awards’ Arthur Ashe Courage Award. And, following in the footsteps of her Kardashian family, she now has her own reality TV show, I Am Cait. Jenner has created a platform in which she could further the equal rights agenda for the LGBT community, especially transgender equality.
But Jenner confirmed on Ellen that she is a conservative Republican. Her conflicted feelings toward same-gender marriage are not far from the staunch opposition reflected in the majority of her political party of choice.
Despite the Supreme Court’s historic decisionon June 26 that made same-gender marriage legal nationwide, Republicans have rallied around judges and clerks who refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Kim Davis, a clerk in Rowan County, Ky., was held in contempt of court for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses and was jailed on September 3.
U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered her release on Tuesday. GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who compared Davis’ fight against marriage equality to the fight against slavery, put together a rally with thousands of supporters to coincide with her release. Davis walked out of the jail to “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor playing on loudspeakers. Survivor front man Frankie Sullivan was not pleased and posted his discontent on Facebook.
“No! We did not grant Kim Davis any rights to use my tune ‘The Eye Of The Tiger,'” he wrote. “I would not grant her the rights to use Charmin! [C’mon] Mike, you are not [“The Donald”] but you can do better than that.”
