In 1989 when I switched from Democrat to Republican, with God as my witness, not one thing changed about what I believed about one man and one woman in a marriage or about diversity of color. That's a good thing.
People should be judged by the principles they espouse and the principles they betray.
Do you expect, forsooth, that a mother will hand down to her children principles which differ from her own?
One must marry one's feelings to one's beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one's life.
When values, thoughts, feelings, and actions are in alignment, a person becomes focused and character is strengthened.
Certainly the Republican Party changed and I never changed, as I became an independent my values never changed whether it's on fiscal responsibility, environment or using government tools to help the less fortunate.
But I don't feel that as a politician I'm hugely different. Obviously I have a different set of experiences that chime with experiences that many of my constituents have. I think I essentially still have the same set of values and the issues that are important to me don't seem to have changed hugely.
We don't have to be perfect, just engaged and committed to aligning values with actions.