On June 26, 2017German Chancellor Merkel announced her change of heart of same-sex marriage. For details, see report from LA Times by clicking on the image below.
Right, it’s clear that the real reason for this is that widespread pressure has made it politically impossible for her to resist any longer, especially as the opposition was going to use her stubborn resistance to an issue most Germans support as a major argument in the upcoming elections.
Still, this shows how important it is to create the story of a change journey, so that
a) it gives leaders a chance to move without loosing face
b) it allows conflicted people to model their own change. So people can say “I’m like Merkel, I changed my mind”. Once the head of government does it, it just becomes more acceptable for all.
Obama’s own change journey was a key milestone in the debate on same-sex unions in the US and clearly paved the way for the Supreme Court decision: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/09/barack-obama-supports-gay-…
But it doesn’t always need to be that high level. Many clever campaigns have modeled such change journeys by people that the campaigns’ target group find easy to relate to. See for example this transcript from the US campaign on same-sex marriage:
