John Lewis was one of the first American elected officials of any prominence to express support for, or at least acceptance of, same-sex marriage. Here's a bit on how that happened and why that mattered:

In 1996, he gave an impassioned floor speech against the Defense of Marriage Act introduced by his Georgia congressional colleague @BobBarr. Lewis said it "should be called the defense of mean-spirited bigots act."

Lewis's vote against the bill was notable because many of his peers in @TheBlackCaucus — including @WhipClyburn, @RepEBJ, @RepBobbyRush and Lewis's fellow Georgian @SanfordBishop — backed DOMA. ( @JacksonLeeTX18 voted present.) https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/104-1996/h316

Other white liberals voted for DOMA, too, as a young reporter with a promising career ahead of him wrote in @TheHill. (Note: the MLK quote that Lewis invokes was "Races don't fall in love," not "racists.")

Lewis's nay vote is all the more notable because he indicated comfort with same-sex marriage itself. Many Democrats who opposed DOMA argued it was unnecessary, mean-spirited, an example of federal overreach — but never quite endorsed equal marriage rights.

The @ACLU noticed Lewis's stand, too, citing his interview with @TheHill in this unusual press release publicizing the group's failure to successfully lobby its "allies."

Pro-gay-marriage activists, who had little rhetoric from politicians they could cite to reinforce their position, began quoting from Lewis's floor speech. @EvanWolfson closed speeches with it, as he did that September at a @QuinnipiacU symposium.

A year and a half after the DOMA vote, @LambdaLegal asked prominent Americans to make a full, universal endorsement of "equal marriage rights for same-sex couples" by signing its Marriage Resolution.

When @LambdaLegal unveiled a list of the resolution's signatories, there were some big names, like @TheEllenShow and @GloriaSteinem, and some big-for-1998 names, like @PaulReiser and @LusciousJckson. There was only one federal or statewide official: Rep. John Lewis.

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And here’s the video of Lewis’s floor speech ahead of the DOMA vote. It’s worth the watch today. https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4399400/user-clip-john-lewis-doma-1996

One more nugget from the mid-‘90s: before John Lewis was being confused with Elijah Cummings he was being mistaken for Major Owens. (This is a 1995 letter to the @ajc.)