# Are there examples of prominent social conservatives who became more liberal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 29, 2017, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-examples-of-prominent-social-conservatives-who-became-more-liberal/790119 "2017-06-29T05:26:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2017, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-examples-of-prominent-social-conservatives-who-became-more-liberal/790119/21 "2017-06-29T22:38:21Z")
Dick Cheney showed support for gay rights and same sex marriage long before his daughter Mary wed. [From Politifact](http://www.politifact.com/colorado/statements/2016/sep/08/alternativepac/pac-backing-gary-johnson-says-dick-cheney-supporte/): > [@](#): > > Cheney broke with conservative orthodoxy on same-sex marriage during his Oct. 5, 2000, vice presidential debate against Sen. Joe Lieberman. > > Debate moderator Bernie Bernard Shaw of CNN asked the candidates if gay couples should “have all the constitutional rights enjoyed by every American citizen?” > > “The fact of the matter is we live in a free society, and freedom means freedom for everybody,” Cheney replied. “We don’t get to choose, and shouldn’t be able to choose and say, ‘You get to live free, but you don’t.’ I think that means that people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into.” ([Watch the debate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K00iC_YNG5o); Cheney discusses gay marriage at 1:17) Mary Cheney and Heather Poe weren’t married until 2012, on the 20th anniversary of their first date. Of course we can’t know how early Mary and Heather might have gotten married if same sex marriage was legal earlier. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2017, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-examples-of-prominent-social-conservatives-who-became-more-liberal/790119/22 "2017-06-29T23:35:13Z")
> [@Iggy](#): > > Dick Cheney showed support for gay rights and same sex marriage long before his daughter Mary wed. > > [From Politifact](http://www.politifact.com/colorado/statements/2016/sep/08/alternativepac/pac-backing-gary-johnson-says-dick-cheney-supporte/): > > Mary Cheney and Heather Poe weren’t married until 2012, on the 20th anniversary of their first date. Of course we can’t know how early Mary and Heather might have gotten married if same sex marriage was legal earlier. Yes, but this was also after his daughter had come out. She wasn’t vocal about it but it was no secret. I guess the unanswered question is whether Cheney became more liberal on the question after Mary came out and there’s no way to know that, I don’t think he’s said. I don’t think Cheney was much of a social conservative in the sense we now think of it; I don’t think he cared about abortion much, for example. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2017, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-examples-of-prominent-social-conservatives-who-became-more-liberal/790119/23 "2017-06-29T23:58:15Z")
Harry Blackmun was appointed to the Supreme Court as a conservative, and early in his time he voted mostly with the other conservatives in the court. In the mid-70s, he slowly switched to supporting the more liberal wing of the court. It started with his support of (and writing the opion for) Roe v. Wade and continued for the rest of his term. When he retired, he was looked upon at the court’s most liberal justice (partly because the more liberal ones were gone). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-examples-of-prominent-social-conservatives-who-became-more-liberal/790119/24 "2017-06-30T00:39:17Z")
David Brock, author of Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-examples-of-prominent-social-conservatives-who-became-more-liberal/790119/25 "2017-06-30T02:52:27Z")
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Earl Warren comes to mind: > [@](#): > > As [California] Attorney General, Warren is most remembered for being the moving force behind Japanese internment during World War II. This was the compulsory removal of 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent from the West Coast to inland concentration camps, without any charges or due process - when anti-Japanese racism was extremely prevalent in California. > **[Earl Warren](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Warren#Japanese-American_internment)** > > Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was an American lawyer, politician, and jurist who served as the 30th governor of California from 1943 to 1953 and as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969. The Warren Court presided over a major shift in American constitutional jurisprudence, which has been recognized by many as a "Constitutional Revolution" in the liberal direction, with Warren writing the majority opinions in landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Educatio... He was appointed by Eisenhower who though he was a conservative. But (from above) > [@](#): > > He is best known for the liberal decisions of the so-called Warren Court, which outlawed segregation in public schools and transformed many areas of American law, especially regarding the rights of the accused, ending public school-sponsored prayers, and requiring “one man–one vote” rules of apportionment of election districts. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-examples-of-prominent-social-conservatives-who-became-more-liberal/790119/26 "2017-06-30T05:30:46Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > I was going to post Goldwater, but I don’t think he really counts - his pro-gay rights stance apparently flowed from his libertarian anti-government ideas. He was merely consistent in his beliefs. Libertarians are not anti-government. Few people think the government should have unlimited authority-- libertarians just have a smaller subset of things they believe are the legitimate function of a government. Would you call Nancy Pelosi anti-government because she doesn’t think the government should have the authority to stop free speech? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-examples-of-prominent-social-conservatives-who-became-more-liberal/790119/27 "2017-06-30T05:47:57Z")
> [@snoe](#): > > Barry Goldwater also springs to mind, but I’m not really sure how much of a “social conservative” he was in the 60s – abortion, gay rights, and secularism weren’t such huge issues back then. Goldwater was never much of a social conservative (he really was a very classic libertarian) and he _hated_ the religious right. There used to be a lot of likeminded people in the GOP establishment, before it got taken over by radical nihilists. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-examples-of-prominent-social-conservatives-who-became-more-liberal/790119/28 "2017-06-30T12:24:51Z")
[Arianna Huffington](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianna_Huffington) was quite conservative. She was often paired as the conservative voice against a liberal on many talk shows. She was married to Michael Huffington who ran for the Senate as a conservative Republican. He spent a large amount of his personal fortune and lost. Then he came out of the closet, Arianna dumped him, and she turned to the left. Supported Kerry in 2004, etc. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-examples-of-prominent-social-conservatives-who-became-more-liberal/790119/29 "2017-06-30T14:18:57Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Goldwater was never much of a social conservative (he really was a very classic libertarian) and he _hated_ the religious right. There used to be a lot of likeminded people in the GOP establishment, before it got taken over by radical nihilists. One can be a social conservative without being part of the “Religious Right”. Goldwater’s position on issues considered to be in the realm of “social” (as compared to “economic”) changed over the years more towards the liberal end of the spectrum. Seems like exactly what the OP is asking about. It’s certainly the case that if you model the political world on a simple left \<—\> right or conservative \<----\> liberal\* axis, someone who is libertarian doesn’t fit well into that model, but that’s a different matter. \*in the contemporary, American sense of the term ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-examples-of-prominent-social-conservatives-who-became-more-liberal/790119/30 "2017-06-30T15:24:34Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Earl Warren comes to mind… Nitpick - it’s “Chief Justice of the United States.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-examples-of-prominent-social-conservatives-who-became-more-liberal/790119.md?page=1)