Jimmy Carter was the first president to openly support LGBTQ rights. He was the first to meet with gay rights activists and opposed the homophobic California Briggs Initiative. He also endorsed a gay rights plank in the democratic party's platform in 1980 when running for reelection.
Carter has stated that he supports same-sex marriage in civil ceremonies. He said: "I believe Jesus would. I don't have any verse in scripture ... I believe Jesus would approve gay marriage, but that's just my own personal belief.
Gee, and Carter was protestant Baptist Sunday school teacher for decades.
Hypothetical: I wonder what the content of the epistle John or Paul would write to the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains Georgia when referring to Jimmy.
This is mostly correct but one or two important details deserve mention.
What Carter did had context, and he was very much an unwitting victim of the time in which he lived. That, therefore, means his example can be understood as a warning to us all and everyone in the generation in which they live. The Civil Rights Movement managed to win its victories with conservative support, NOT liberals
(they now re-write history to say otherwise). Many in my experience do not know the first Civil Rights Act was in 1959, not 1954, under the Eisenhower administration and when the '64 rights act and the '65 Voting Rights Acts come to the legislative floor it was Goldberg Republicans that passed the bill, NOT Gore, Sr. and Russell Democrats
(the Senate office building is named after the racist Richard Russell). Russell attempted to filibuster the vote to prevent the legislation from becoming law. When MLK, jr. met with LBJ he was told that the Democrat Party would never wholly support any legislation and King's efforts were best spent working the Republican ranks
(this is recorded in the biographies of both King and Johnson). Liberals get away misrepresenting this because
numerically more Dems voted for the legislation than Repubs, but it was a smaller proportion among Dems than Repubs (60% Dems; 78% Repubs). On top of this was the Viet Nam Conflict, the tragedy at Altamont, left-of-center killers murdering JFK, RFK, and MLK, and the chaos of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in which leftists rioted the leftist convention. It wasn't just chaos for the country; it was internal rejection of the Democratic Party and its policies. The New Deal did not work. That swept Nixon into office and Nixon had to resign under the pressures of Watergate malfeasance and corruption. What the media told us we needed was an upstanding moral man as POTUS.
All that paved the way for the unknown Jimmy Carter, a farmer who'd graduated from the US Naval Academy, and won his early elections riding on the influence of his active participation in his local Baptist congregation. Black got their rights by the time he took office, but other marginalized populations hadn't or, again, so the leftists of that day told everyone. Carter wasn't so much as a gay rights supporter as he was a supporter of applying civil rights to everyone
(which is what the classic, mainstream, orthodox viewpoint of civil rights had been on both supporting sides of the political divide). Civil Rights was originally an off-shoot of the Declaration's Preamble declaring all men equal. Modern definitions of "Civil Rights" is far removed from that viewpoint so it's important not to define late-60s/early-70s thought with current practice. Marxists have abused all of this. Marxism is a Statist political philosophy that has no regard for Democrats or Republicans; it's the revolution
(and overthrow of all class structures that matters). So, Carter, thinking that applying good civil rights to everyone is a good idea, was very much a victim of his times. Carter didn't wield much authority. Ted Kennedy and Carl Albert ruled the halls of legislation. What power, influence, and authority Carter did possess was inexperienced, and poorly informed by his Christianity. His decision to embargo the Soviet Union and later to boycott the Moscow Olympics seemed like a compassionate alternative to more aggressive responses
(following Korea, Viet Nam, Cuba, Chile, Angola, Ethiopia - the Cold and Hot wars were fought globally) his predecessors tried, but they only exacerbated the problem. Lastly
(because I know much of this is or seems digressive), Carter gained some commendable ground getting Begin and Sadat together for the Camp David Accords, which ended up killing Sadat but might have led to larger peace in the region had not Carter also tried to straddle the fence with the Shah and the Ayatollah. The loss of relations with Iran ended up undermining everything that might have been accomplished coming away from the Camp David Accords and eventually leading to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, decades of war and terrorism in that region and abroad, the paradoxically named "Arab Spring," Obama's nonsensical policies and practices, and the current Middle East situation. I won't go into economics, but Carter's economy was a mess.
I voted for the man
(before I learned about the history of Democrat politics and got some sense)!
My point being, "gay rights" exploiting civil rights didn't have its impetus in Carter and Carter was largely a victim of his times and that era's social politics, his inexperience and lack of influence, and the internal conflicts between his (one-sided) religious ideals and the demands of being POTUS during a time when the leadership ideals of that office were largely non-existent
(which is how Reagan got elected - he took the reins). Think of Walter Mondale as a natural extension and consequence of Democratic thinking beginning with JFX through LBJ, Humphrey, RFK, and Carter.
Oops! One more thought: With the persecution and prosecution of Communists following WWII, culminating in the blacklists and McCarthy Hearings..... Hollywood switched from a largely capitalist and conservative institution to a Marxist one and conservatives have yet to regain a majority there. The same thing happened in Academia and the "news" media. By the time Carter took office these influences were substantive, but few understood them - especially not Carter. It's common knowledge nowadays but it wasn't back then.
I'll answer the question asked in a separate post but that answer begins with Paul understanding the whole problem, not just the singular aspect of "
gay rights."
). Then I started reading conservative sources and found I thought as they thought (or vice versa, as the case may be). Along the way God called, and I was in for a boatload of more shock (and awe 
). Had to leave Buddhism. I cut my teeth on Watchman Nee, Francis Schaeffer, and Oswald Chambers; all of whom helped establish in me a Christian worldview I could apply to all aspects of life. As far as the articulation goes, it took me several years to decide on an undergrad major 
)
, especially for a good, earnest, conscientious synergistic Dispensationalist. Heraclitus was apparently correct: change is the only constant in life.... aside from Jesus, that is 
.
