Associated Press
As recently as 2004, Sen. Rob Portman voted to change the U.S. Constitution to permanently prohibit marriage equality. Now, however, the Ohio Republican has changed his mind.
Senator Rob Portman, the Ohio Republican, has switched his stand on gay marriage, saying he now supports it after his son told him he is gay.
Mr. Portman, who had been considered one of the leading candidates to be Mitt Romney's running mate in 2012, told Ohio newspapers that his son Will told him and his wife, Jane, in 2011 of his sexual orientation.
"It allowed me to think of this issue from a new perspective, and that's of a Dad who loves his son a lot and wants him to have the same opportunities that his brother and sister would have -- to have a relationship like Jane and I have had for over 26 years," Mr. Portman was quoted by Cleveland.com as telling reporters in an interview in his Washington office.
The number of elected Republican officials who are on record supporting marriage equality is extraordinarily small -- I believe Portman is alone among today's Senate GOP -- making his announcement welcome news for proponents of marriage rights.
Of course, Portman's announcement also raises related questions. The Ohio Republican was, for example, a finalist for the Republican Party's vice presidential nomination last year, and Portman told Mitt Romney about his gay son. Did this play a role in Romney's decision to choose someone else? I have no idea, but it seems like a fair question.
What's more, if Portman learned about his son's sexual orientation in 2011, why did it take the senator so long to come around? And why was he still endorsing discriminatory policies in 2012?
While we're at it, the Cleveland Plain Dealer noted that Portman could support legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, but the senator said he hasn't done this because he says "economic policy issues are his specialty." First, senators are required to tackle a variety of issues. Second, I've seen Portman's positions on economic issues, and if they're his "specialty," he's in trouble.
But even putting all of that aside, there's also a larger consideration to keep in mind about the nature of societal change.
To be sure, I'm genuinely glad Portman has done the right thing, and can only hope it encourages other Republicans to do the same. What I find discouraging, though, is that the Republican senator was content to support discriminatory policies until they affected someone he personally cares about.
What about everyone else's sons and daughters? Why must empathy among conservatives be tied so directly to their own personal interactions?
We've seen this a few too many times. A Republican will support Medicaid cuts right up until he sees the program up close, with his own eyes. Republicans will be skeptical about federal disaster relief right up until it's their community that sees devastation. Republicans are prepared to deny basic rights based on sexual orientation, right up until it's their loved one who's gay.
It seems the key to American social progress in the 21st century is simple: more conservatives having more life experiences.
Indeed, I'd be glad to introduce Republican lawmakers to more Americans who are poor, in the hopes they'll stop trying to cut health care programs; students, in the hopes they'll stop opposing education investments; women, in the hopes they'll stop opposing women's health care; and African Americans, in the hopes that they'll stop supporting voter-suppression tactics.
"It allowed me to think of this issue from a new perspective, and that's of a Dad who loves his son a lot," Portman said. That's a perfectly nice sentiment. But if his son came out as unemployed, would the senator give another look to economic stimulus and extended jobless benefits?
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This is just another manifestation of the "I've got mine; to hell with you" thinking of the GOP. When they need or want something by golly it'd better be there, but if anyone else needs or wants something we are evil takers demanding entitlements. Ugh.
Not to defend Portman, but I personally believe that the "sea change" in public attitudes about marriage equality has come through people being personally confronted in their own lives with the issue, through knowing someone they respect, like and even love, coming out to them. I'm as strong a liberal as anyone, but I will be the first to say that I spent a long time putting this issue "under the rug" since I felt we had "more important" issues to deal with - I wasn't against it, but I sure wasn't out waving the flag for it. And then, my oldest friend in the world (going back to age 3 when we met in Sunday School) attended a class reunion with his partner, who he has been with longer than both my mariages and a LTR combined. With all the medical problems he now faces, they are a monument to "for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part." And being confronted with that fact about my oldest friend made me confront my own hypocrisy on the issue and realize I had mostly just been a political and moral coward.
I suspect most people make strong moral changes about what and how they believe when they are confronted with the situation - whatever situation it may be - in their personal lives.
Oh, and I didn't just immediately turn my beliefs around upon seeing my friend and his partner. Like any important decision, it took awhile.
May every Republican be blessed with gay offspring. Too bad they can't have kids who are black and poor.
Exactly. When issues are purely academic, it's easy to be high & mighty. But it's a totally different story when these issues are in your life. Here, this comment belongs in this thread:
Who says they don't have poor, black (or white) offspring? Most of them have their fingers crossed while they preach family values.
Portman's turn around reminds me of an episode of the Simpsons where Homer's life is saved by a gay man. The take away was--'if only everyone could have their life saved by a gay person'.
I suppose we should be happy to have another convert but what the @!$%#? These guys who have this great metamorphosis only AFTER some situation touches them.........Yeah, I know we all need that sometimes but I am troubled that we elect people so lacking in humanity to a job that requires at least a tiny soupcon of empathy to be effective.
Rob Portman is a broke-dick jadrool of the first order and I find his conversion, while welcome, more than a little disingenuous. Where were you Rob when others all around you perfectly understood what your son has now told you? Where was your understanding of what should be everyday rights back then? Does some family member or close friend need to shot down in a movie theater before you can grow the balls to stand up to the NRA? Must it happen to you before you can feel it? And do you really need to think about it for a couple of years?
We deserve better......but we rarely get it. So......Welcome Rob aboard this car of the Freedom Train. Welcome to what America could be. And tell your buddy Rubio who believes in "America" that he doesn't have clue either. Tell them all Rob. Tell your GOP brethren because they have no idea what America is and even less idea of what it could be.
I always find this discussion absolutely ridiculous. being against gay marriage is not just a Republican issue. I have been discriminated by people from every political party and ethnic background for being gay. Check out the trials of gay issues in the State of Rhode island. Pretty much the bluest of the blue, yet there are ALWAYS problem with getting pro-gay legislation passed. It is something around 95% Democrat, but the gay marriage bill was tabled yet again this year. Where is the compassion of the Dems??????
@pasco
We have the same problem in Illinois even though a handful of Republicans support gay marriage and Dems control the legislature and governor's office. There are people in the religious community that keep interfering in the political process. The Catholic bishops made a big issue in Springfield when the measure came up for hearings. There were other religious leaders that opposed the measure. Legislators are afraid of the religious backlash. I find that odd because most Catholics are far more liberal than their legislators give them credit. Obama won the Catholic vote despite the bishop's political opposition. Too bad state legislators are afraid of the paper tiger.
Hey Mike,
I agree with you. It does seems that religions ( mostly Catholic) are the ones that are defining this issue. Rhode Island is the number one most Catholic Church in the country, with regards to the ratio of population. It am having a problem understanding this one. I find that most Catholics are centrist, well, mostly with a bend toward liberal viewpoints, especially in the new England States. They really do seem to be afraid of the Church. Kind of doesn't make sense to me. Every time the issue comes up, the main topic is "How do we make it so the Church will not be affected by gay marriage??". I do not agree with the Dem against Rep. debate on this issue. yes, the Republicans are more vocal on their opposition, but when it comes down to it, it seems as if it is RELIGION, not party alliliation. There are 113 members of the Rhode Isalnd Legislature, 14 of those are of the Republican Party. It seems as if the Democrats are SO Por-gay marriage, it would be served up on a platter there. Thank goodnees the Governor, an independant, is so pro gay marriage. he keeps pushing, and I thank him for it. My partner and I were married in MA. Rhode island is a little confusing as to our status there.
I believe that your state and Illinois are going to allow gay marriage very soon. It is merely a question of getting younger voters to push the legislators in that direction. There are many Chicago area Dems that are intimidated by the Church considering the size of the Catholic population. The bill passed in the state Senate and the governor said he would sign a bill but it came up 12 votes short in the House so the bill was not brought to the floor for a vote. According to the House leader he will bring the matter up again and there are groups working on the legislators to support the bill. Change comes slowly, but we eventually get there.
"after his son told him he is gay."
And turned 18, registered to VOTE!
Of course he's changed his position - "HIS" son is gay. Whatever it takes, isn't that the way all issues should be decided, "what if it were me" - what would I want?!
"All WE are saying, is give US a chance".....
'Conservatives' are very clannish. They are their immediate families are 'the people' and everyone else is 'the other'. Unless something happens to affect them directly, it's not real because it's not impacting real people. It's sad and disturbing, especially when you're among 'the other'.
But if his son came out as unemployed, would the senator give another look to economic stimulus and extended jobless benefits?
..Or if his son was shot to death with an AR-15, would the senator then decide to support an assault weapons ban?
Another fine analogy. Benen should create a post titled:
"Things Rob Portman would support if they effected him personally."
Again, as stated in comment #20...this is human nature. Gabby Giffords and her husband at the very least took a stronger and more active position on gun control AFTER they were so personally affected. I don't get the surprise.
Thanks to his son, Portman has had a “change of heart”. But I wonder about people like Portman and Dick Cheney. I seriously doubt they would have come out for gay marriage if not for their children. They are clueless about the lives of “other” people and couldn’t care less.
I'm not sure how much they are really for equality. They are certainly not activist in any sense. At best, they've merely withdrawn their services as roadblocks.
Parental rejection is a big problem. It's the reason why LGBT kids are a plurality among homeless kids. Portman should be commended for accepting that his son was still his son after he came out, but that's not enough to accept Portman as an ally.
What is Sen. Portman planning to do when he leaves office at the end of his current term?
Could he be angling for a lobbying job at the Human Rights Campaign? Is that what this grandstanding is ALL ABOUT?! LOL
In Ohio in particular, when a republican gets out of the lockstep they wind up devouring him.
That is what it may take for those who oppose it now to change their minds. When something is or will hurt someone they care about they do tend to change how the look at it. I myself am not against it. Reason is that those who are gay do not try to get me to follow their way of life. They respect how I feel about relationships. I only want one with a woman. I respect their way of life which is what this should be about.
Well, one at a time is still better than none.
"Why must empathy among conservatives be tied so directly to their own personal interactions?"
That's easy, Steve. GOPers can't do empathy--they're psychologically incapable of putting themselves in another's place, even for a moment. It's why they're utterly clueless about minorities, including the LGTB community, or working people. Something has to smack them in the face before they can even dimly understand that their way may not be the only way. And they aren't learning, at least not very fast. They still think they got hammered in the last election because their messaging was poor. They may never learn that it was their hateful policies that Americans rejected, not the way they presented them.
@azportsider, I agree with you on this. I think it's easy to see it from an ideological stand-point: people who vote Democrat believe in government providing a social safety net, in sharing the wealth and treating everyone equally. These beliefs speak of empathy and compassion. No great surprises there.
What's interesting, is that there's scientific evidence to suggest that people who vote Republican have brains which are wired differently to those who vote Democrat.
I find it interesting to look at this with regards gun reform. Democrats see the potential personal risks in reducing the availability of guns is outweighed by the potential benefits to society as a whole, while the rhetoric of the NRA, specifically, is founded on fear.
tldr: to paraphrase and alter a little that well known saying, some are born empathic, some achieve empathy and some will just never get it even when it's thrust in their faces!
So when it is personal, it is a different story. Now only if he was jobless or living in poverty, maybe he would change his opinion about that too.
It is too bad they can not think on there own to do the best for the American people. And not think that what ever the Dem's want we don't. It is time to bring those guys down to our level. Where the real people are. They just keep digging themselves a bigger hole. This is coming from a gay man that only wants what everyone else has. Is that really too much to ask. Good for his son. And no matter who you are are where you live, if you son and daughter tell you that they are gay, you will still love them. My mother did.
Hypocrite: noun \ˈhi-pə-ˌkrit\
1. Rob Portman
so, if his son weren't gay, he wouldn't have seen the light?
typical Republican.
On one level, I don't care how Portman arrived at is change of heart- he did it. That's the political, calculating part. But in another way, I care a lot and congratulate him. Isn't this the way- "what if it were my son?" - that we hope our elected officials will consider their decisions? But I'm not so naive as to think this will change any other Republicans' hearts, that would require too much empathy and too much loosening of the idealogical noose around their brain stem.
It would have been nice if he felt that way about his gay constituents before his son came out.
I congratulate his son for having the courage to come out to his father - I can't imagine how difficult that must have been.
Empathy: Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.
Republican definition: Bleeding heart liberal getting the wool pulled over their eyes by deadbeats and deviants.
Their (Conservatives) brains are different.
http://2012election.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004818
It's the only way I can get through to my dad when having "conversations" about politics. He'll go on about takers & nanny states & all the other Fox talking points & I will have to insert an example that makes it personal. Only then does he even pause. I pride myself with trying to look at all sides of the story & make up my own mind as to which one I agree with. Some people genuinely just don't care. (My dad actually said that compared to the rest of the world, even our poorest was "rich" to justify funding cuts.)
This is human nature...not conservative or liberal related. Everyone gets a different perspective once they take time for more "personal interactions." A reverese example is how LGBT leader Windmeyer was invited to spend time with Chick-fil-a's Dan Cathy. He came away with a totally different perspective and with new facts he (and others) had not known.
Sorry - no.
Terriels, "no" what? Windmeyer didn't change his opinion of Cathy after having personal interactions with him? He says otherwise.
Nice of Portman to wake up when his son was going to a victim of the discrimination Portman endorsed. But took him two years AND he couldn't think of other people and the impact of his bigotry on their lives until it hit his family head on.
And there is the problem. Unless it hits these idiots in the face and the suffering they want to inflict will hit one of their own, they can't manage to feel for anyone but themselves and their ambitions.
One needs to understand that for alot of us, we were raised to beleive that being homosexual was wrong. Even once we have to confront it due to a member of the family coming out, it takes awhile to adjust. I'm not Republican or even conservative, I'm liberal but it was still hard to adjust to my daughter being gay.
The GOP mocks empathy. They literally mock the idea of even trying to imagine how their policies might affect other people different from themselves. We saw that during the process for confirming Justice Sotomayor, when they expressed visceral outrage at Obama's passing remark that empathy was a trait he looked for in potential Supreme Court nominees. And we see it now in the comment by the sociopath Van Roberto just above mine, chortling over the fantasy that Portman's selfish flip-flop will somehow lead to an influx of gays who will consort with bigots who despise them in exchange for a tax cut.
The true difference between liberals and conservatives is an abstract sense of compassion. Conservatives can be compassionate when a situation is tangible- someone they know and love. Liberals can more easily put themselves in the place of others.
I am very happy for Portman's son that he was able to come out to his parents and be met with acceptance, but wish it didn't take having a gay child for conservatives to understand the issue.
Reminds me of when Nancy Reagan came out for Stem Cell Research.
"What's more, if Portman learned about his son's sexual orientation in 2011, why did it take the senator so long to come around? And why was he still endorsing discriminatory policies in 2012?" - Mr. Benen
He may have been trying to exhibit some integrity. If he'd been so adamantly, and presumably sincerely, anti gay marriage, no matter how misguided, he must have felt some conflict over abandoning that position at the unexpected drop of a gay son's revelation. Even r's can occasionally experience cognitive dissonance, and Mr. Portman's close minded, (less so now apparently), little brain must have been spinning.
Unless he really was a total hypocrite, with latent pro-gay attitudes purposefully repressed just to toe an ideological line, then he probably needed time to sort out just what the hell he really believed, with the reality of a gay son standing right in front of him.
He deserves credit for making a commitment to getting over himself and to being a supportive father and not freaking out and rejecting his own flesh and blood and continuing with his homophobic dogma when provided with an inescapable reason to reevaluate it.
you know, as a gay man I appreciate this and all. If Rob Portman had any real balls, he would have done this before it involved his own kids. That's real compassion and courage.