Ohio Sen. Rob Portman has announced his support for same-sex marriage, making him the first sitting member of the Senate GOP to do so.
In the past, Portman has been adamantly against gay rights, supporting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and voted for a bill prohibiting gay couples in Washington from adopting during his time in Congress. But on Thursday, he told CNN’s Dana Bash that it was the coming out of his son two years ago that opened his eyes.
“I’m announcing today a change of heart on an issue a lot of people feel strongly about. It has to do with gay couples’ opportunity to marry. During my career in the House and also the last few years in the Senate I’ve taken a position against gay marriage rooted in part in my faith and my faith tradition…
I had a very personal experience which is my son came to Jane, my wife and I, told us he was gay and that it was not a choice, that’s just part of who he is and that he had been that way since he could remember.”
Clearly, this decision did not come to him lightly. Not only did it take two years for him to announce his new stance status, but he was supporting discriminatory policies in the workplace as recent as last June. All too often, elected officials change their viewpoints only when said issue happens to them personally. Porter suddenly became empathetic to the LGBT community because his son is gay … what about all the other sons and daughters who have wanted the right to become husbands and wives?
While I’m thrilled for Portman’s family and his genuine openness to rights for his son, it’s going to take a lot more activism on the senator’s part to convince me that he came to this decision because he supports the LGBT community.
Photo: wikipedia.org
