An article here says that Senator Rob Portman, a "leading conservative voice" who was opposed to gay marriage because of his "faith" and his "faith tradition," has now decided that gay people should be allowed to get married. (He was never a big crusader against gay marriage, as his focus was more on economic issues, but he voted against it.) Portman came to this conclusion after his son let him know he was gay and "helped him work through his decision to announce his change in position on gay marriage."
It's great that he changed his mind, but unfortunate that he couldn't step outside what he thought his "faith" told him until it became a personal issue for him. (Yay for his son having the courage to come out to his parents.) As some have noted in the comments, a lot of people are changing their viewpoint on this subject as they begin to realize how many people they know are gay, and Portman is hardly alone here. Nevertheless, it's a little sad that it took a revelation from a family member to "evolve" Portman's thinking. If politicians had a little more empathy, a little more ability to imagine how others feel, this country might be a better place.
Having his son come out as gay made the issue personal for him, and showed him what LGBT people are really like, they're not the evil people he probably thought they are, they are just like us.
ReplyDeleteThanks for adding my blog to your blogroll, I didn't even know you had done that. Would you be interested in writing a guest post for me? If so, let me know at ramblingsofsheldon@gmail.com
I agree, and I added a bit to my post as you were commenting. I don't mean to suggest that Portman is in any way unique. A lot of people have "evolved" their thinking on this topic as they begin to realize that, hey, they actually KNOW gay people, and gay people aren't all that strange and scary after all. This is why it's important to talk about the subject.
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