Gay Pol Leads Atlanta City Council To Marriage Resolution

City Council Member Alex Wan

Atlanta's City Council approved a resolution Monday night to support marriage equality, countering Mayor Kasim Reed's previously stated opposition to extending marriage rights to same-sex couples.

The effort was led by openly gay council member Alex Wan, who told the Georgia Voice that he had been waiting for the right moment to introduce the resolution.

"Folks in the community have been asking and encouraging me to do something," Wan told the Voice. "And with Atlanta being the city it is and having such a large LGBT population, I really wanted us to be one of the leaders in the discussion on marriage equality."

The resolution has little legal impact, since the state of Georgia has a constitutional ban on marriage equality, but the move is one of many local gestures of support from mayors and city councils across the country.

Mayor Reed met with local Atlanta LGBT activists earlier this year to discuss his own stance on LGBT rights and marriage equality, shortly after President Barack Obama expressed his new support of full marriage rights for same-sex couples. Though Reed touted his support of LGBT issues, he said he could not yet support marriage.

"I have fought hard for the rights of gays and lesbians my entire political career from protecting adoption rights for gay and lesbian families, to voting against Georgia’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage as a state senator, to serving as the state house sponsor for the only hate crimes bill ever passed in the state of Georgia," he said in June.