A growing trend in American politics:

You can watch video of Governor Corzine campaigning at a gay pride event -- and making it very, very clear he supports marriage equality here. It's pretty clear that Corzine himself -- unprompted -- is the one making marriage an issue. He wants to talk about it. He's not coming up with convoluted excuses, like so many pols do. This is the future. And, more Democratic candidates need to stand up and be upfront about their support for what's right.

Importantly, Corzine isn't just talking about marriage in front of LGBT audiences. As the [Philadelphia] Inquirer piece noted, Corzine made a pro-marriage equality statement in his June 2nd primary night victory speech.

Jon Corzine is the current Democratic Governor of New Jersey - and he's currently in a very tight race for reelection - so it's truly noteworthy that Corzine is using an issue that just a few years ago was radioactive to Democrats.

Florida is not New Jersey - our state tends to be more conservative on this issue. On the other hand, we've never had a "mainstream" or high profile Democrat (or any state leader for that matter) declare vocally their support for marriage equality. If that happened, and opponents of equality were aggressively responded to, I have a feeling we would find out Florida is more progressive than the conventional wisdom dictates. As always when it comes to driving a progressive agenda, it comes down to that increasingly cliche term: leadership.

Even if timid Florida Democrats running for office don't want to embrace marriage equality right away, there are numerous other equality-related issues that demand leadership. There's the incredibly awful gay adoption ban, where our state is the only state along with Mississippi to keep this bigoted practice. A majority of Floridians want to get rid of the ban. There's also domestic partnerships and civil unions.

It would be truly great to see someone like Alex Sink, or even Dave Aronberg or Dan Gelber get out in front on these issues, not merely for their own political gain, but for the sake of advancing the rights of everyday Floridians.