Rob Portman becomes first GOP senator to endorse gay marriage
“It’s a change of heart from the position of a father,” Portman, of Terrace Park, told three Ohio reporters on Thursday during a 45-minute interview in his office. “I think we should be allowing gay couples the joy and stability of marriage.”…
“I’m going to be supportive of Ohioans having the opportunity to marry,” he said. “I would not plan to take a leadership role in this, but people will know my position.”
Portman said his own evolution on the issue began in 2011, when Will, then a freshman at Yale University, made a stunning revelation.
“Will … came to Jane and me and announced that he was gay, that it was not a choice. It was who he is and he had been that way since he could remember,” Portman recalled of the conversation. “Jane and I were both surprised, very surprised, but also very supportive of him. Our reaction was not about policy or positions. It was about him as a son and letting him know we were 110 percent supportive of him.”
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Excellent development. I’m glad Sen. Rob Portman decided to be a good and supportive father and not try to disown his own son over something [that should be] so inconsequential as sexual orientation.
mythicknight on March 15, 2013 at 10:37 AM
I hope (although I’ll probably be disappointed) that nobody on here thinks that Portman should’ve disowned his son, regardless of whether they agree with his policy switch.
LukeinNE on March 15, 2013 at 10:41 AM
Portman probably needs to spend more time with his family…
viking01 on March 15, 2013 at 10:42 AM
What is troublesome about this “education” effort is that youngsters go through a latency period in their sexual development when they prefer the company of their own sex: the “boys have cooties” or “boys’ club only; girls keep out” period. That stage of development does not mean that the youngsters are latent homosexuals. By imposing such a foolish “educational” agenda on kids when the furtherest thing on their minds is sex is to confuse them. Kids just want to be with their own sex at a certain point in their maturation.
onlineanalyst on March 15, 2013 at 10:44 AM
Many probably don’t. What the powers benind the push for SSM want is a legal basis to sue religious institutions for discrimination. The endgame is making it illegal for a preacher to say from the pulpit that homosexuality is a sin.
Kataklysmic on March 15, 2013 at 10:45 AM
Nope…just another tragic birth defect…would you support finding the cause so we can eradicate it or do you have other intentions with your “cause”?
ClassicCon on March 15, 2013 at 10:47 AM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/9930290/South-Africa-up-to-28-of-schoolgirls-HIV-positive.html
davidk on March 15, 2013 at 10:48 AM
With all the bluster from the “enlightened ones” on this thread, you would think we were talking about 300% of America’s population instead of 3%. And, only a small percentage of that 3% want to get “married”. This isn’t about homosexual “love”, it is about political leverage and achieving normalcy through changing the meaning of a word.
kingsjester on March 15, 2013 at 10:51 AM
I think that you have hit on the crux of the matter re Portman. His “epiphany” seems like nothing more than opportunism.
onlineanalyst on March 15, 2013 at 10:52 AM
Why is he only endorsing gay marriage?
Why isn’t he endorsing True Marriage Equality?
Is Rob Portman a bigot?
blink on March 15, 2013 at 10:54 AM
What it means is that the issue hit home for him, and it changed his perception of it. Did it make Cheney any more prone to moving to the Left? I dare you to find a Dem who would argue it did.
changer1701 on March 15, 2013 at 10:54 AM
Very provocative. Do you think they’d do the same of an Imam at a mosque or will they receive immunity from theoretical hate crime legislation? Wonder what stance the hardcore 1st amendment advocates would take in this situation.
RepubChica on March 15, 2013 at 11:00 AM
I agree with all of your comments and in particular the above.
Well, it won’t be a sanction, it will be a mandate. Just like the HHS mandate under Obamacare that Churches offer and pay for insurance providing abortion, morning after pill and etc.
If homosexuality is deemed on the same level as Marriage, then Churches will be required to “marry” homosexuals as well regardless of their Religious Faith.
Marriage is between a Man and a Woman and has been so since Adam and Eve.
This is part of the organized attack on the Bill of Rights.
bluefox on March 15, 2013 at 11:02 AM
If its such a small issue why are there dozens of groups with thousands of members devoted to nothing else but stopping same-sex marriage?
libfreeordie on March 15, 2013 at 11:13 AM
This is brilliantly fantastic! Thank you Sen. Portman and family! I’m glad that he and his were able to accept their son and embrace each other as a family.
Many Hot Air commentators could learn a thing or two about family values from him.
ZachV on March 15, 2013 at 11:15 AM
Rhetorical I presume
Kataklysmic on March 15, 2013 at 11:18 AM
When will you finally learn to embrace True Marriage Equality?
blink on March 15, 2013 at 11:20 AM
Something that is “contrary to our biological natures” isn’t the criteria for a mental illness. Which is, in part, why the APA changed.
libfreeordie on March 15, 2013 at 11:22 AM
I’m not sure why people like Portman think everyone should change their thinking and a long standing institution as marriage just because his kid came out of the closet. Smacks of narcissism.
Blake on March 15, 2013 at 11:22 AM
Wait, you actually think it’s ‘family values’ behind this reversal and not political opportunism in the prevailing winds of change? That’s really adorable, however naive. Romanticism lives.
RepubChica on March 15, 2013 at 11:23 AM
… Why do you want to get married? I love my boyfriend with my entire heart and soul. I want to build a family with him, and spend the rest of my life with him. It’s no different than any straight couple who chooses to get married.
And you’re insane.
ZachV on March 15, 2013 at 11:23 AM
There’s nothing conservative about same-sex marriage. I’d say it just shows that Portman isn’t much of a conservative in the first place. If he’ll cave on this, he’ll probably cave on just about anything.
There Goes The Neighborhood on March 15, 2013 at 11:23 AM
Well, I’m sure within a few years one of us will be vindicated.
Kataklysmic on March 15, 2013 at 11:25 AM
Based on the oft-repeated but never proven claim that homosexuality is inborn rather than behavior.
There Goes The Neighborhood on March 15, 2013 at 11:25 AM
Well, the Muslims are exempt from Obamacare because they are against insurance, LOL I’m sure they will receive exemptions from any law they object to. According to D. Feinstein, their purpose is to make laws and the Supreme Court will figure it all out:-)
bluefox on March 15, 2013 at 11:26 AM
Rob and Jane Portman love their son, Will. They would do anything for him as parents. They want him to have a happy, full and successful life; and they want Will to have the same opportunities in life that they did.
It mirrors the same journey as my family, who love and support me and wish to see me happy as well. They wish me to be treated as they are. Bigotry doesn’t affects me so much as it affects my parents, siblings, extended family, friends, in-laws and everyone else in my life who are told their loved ones are unequal, lesser human beings than they are.
ZachV on March 15, 2013 at 11:29 AM
Please tell me that you support many APA changes.
And please tell me that you finally support True Marriage Equality.
blink on March 15, 2013 at 11:30 AM
Tell me again why you want to deny others from having the same right – the right to marry as they choose.
blink on March 15, 2013 at 11:32 AM
And yet you oppose this for many, many Americans.
Which is exactly what you’re “telling” millions of families by opposing True Marriage Equality.
Bigot.
blink on March 15, 2013 at 11:36 AM
Given your wish to build a family with someone whom you cannot biologically do so, I don’t think you have the right to question someone else’s sanity when their point has been borne out not in theory, but in practice.
Or are you saying it is your intent to subject an adopted child to a life without a mother in order to validate your relationship? Would you also bar that child from knowing their mother’s medical history or other fairly important genetic information?
Because that would be insane. Why don’t you leave the family building to people who can provide what every child has a natural right to – a mother and father, as that is how they were brought into this world.
BKennedy on March 15, 2013 at 11:40 AM
It’s amazing how often this has to be explained. Same-sex attraction is believed to be resultant of two things: prenatal hormone exposure and epigenetics.
Simply explained, the hormonal bath the fetus is exposed to during week 8 of pregnancy goes awry in some manner and leads to what evidence we already see in gay men and women.
For example, the incidence of homosexuality in males increases for each older maternal biological male brother a child has. This is due to the woman’s body seeing the male fetus’ hormones as ‘foreign’ and increasingly becomes more intolerant of the androgen hormones.
Likewise, we can see this effect in other areas of the body. Finger lengths (oddly) are affect by the hormones you are exposed to as a fetus. Not surprisingly, the finger length ratios of gay men/straight women are the same whereas the ratios for gay women/straight men are the same. The same effect plays out in the structure of the brain, left-right handedness and the direction of hair swirls. (It’s weird, I know).
The whole relationship becomes more clearer when you also learn about other gender disorders and their effects on sexuality. Girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH),produce very high levels of testosterone and often display masculinized genitalia and higher rates of same-sex attraction.
… of course, I can only lead you to water. I can’t actually make you do research for yourself. It’s as easy as typing ‘research on homosexuality’ into Google Scholar and doing some reading.
ZachV on March 15, 2013 at 11:44 AM
This is how you change hearts and minds, my friend. Well done, Zach. There’s more powerful advocacy in that one paragraph than in any threat, intimidation, or slandering of your political opponent and his/her belief system. (Martin Luther King was ahead of his time).
As someone with very intimate friendships with gay people, I know where you come from. I cried over what happened to Tyler Clemnti, which is why I don’t make the case against gay marriage or homosexuality in any respect. There are indeed physiological differences in the brains of humans attracted to the same sex as to the heterosexual brain. I don’t see it as a behavior of choice–sexual attraction is in our genes –hence my opposition to any legislation, banning, impediment to equal opportunities afforded to straight people. There’s just no need to impugn the people of the Christian faith which has done so much good for humanity for centuries.
My objections lie in the subterfuge of many high-powered so-called gay marriage opponents, who believe that bashing a national religion and its teachings is a winning strategy to get their way.
I don’t like it at all. It makes it really difficult to garner meaningful sympathy for the cause, which is just in the end. There has to be room in the end for opposing forces and beliefs to come together and agree to disagree. (okay, now maybe that’s romanticism;)
RepubChica on March 15, 2013 at 11:47 AM
Your attempts to link same-sex marriage to practices such as arranged marriages between older males and under-aged females in the Islamic faith do not go unnoticed. Glad you can support “true marriage equality” by supporting “true religious freedom” to rape women and children.
ZachV on March 15, 2013 at 11:48 AM
Should read proponents.
RepubChica on March 15, 2013 at 11:50 AM
You are taking the argument to a extreme. Why can’t two consensual , law-abiding people, mother and son get married but two men can? Or why can’t one upstanding man and three women, who all love him dearly, get married and two women can? Where’s the logic?
thebrokenrattle on March 15, 2013 at 11:54 AM
Do you have the same raw contempt for single-parents households? How about divorcees? What about elderly parents that do not have the same life expectancy as young parents?
Would you (do you) support legislation that constitutionally bans on single women having children, parents getting divorced and constitutional bans on adoption by elderly couples?
Clearly you do not see these families as legitimate and violating a child’s natural right to two parents. How many families do you wish to destroy and dismantle to enact your ideal version of the world?
ZachV on March 15, 2013 at 11:56 AM
A great appreciation to all that has stood for Marriage that is between a Man and a Woman.
Especially Charlemagne and BKennedy in their excellent way of expressing their comments!!
bluefox on March 15, 2013 at 12:00 PM
These are completely different issues that have historically been linked to social ills like child abuse, domestic/spousal abuse, rights violations, incest and the like. This is why they have been determined by the American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, American Counseling Association to be treated and supported by their members.
In contrast to sexuality, these health professional and medical associations have complied decades of scientific, peer-reviewed research to support their belief that same-sex attraction is a natural and normal part of the human experience, and that same-sex marriage would provide a net benefit to the health of society.
ZachV on March 15, 2013 at 12:13 PM
I see they moved this to the front page.
bluefox on March 15, 2013 at 12:14 PM
The APA even submitted a brief on the DOMA case to that effect, along with 16 pages of citations of peer-reviewed studies from the medical communities to back this.
… I know. Oh, those terrible doctors and therapists. So totally buying into the “liberal agenda” with their medical degrees.
ZachV on March 15, 2013 at 12:22 PM
That’s why I said they were upstanding good people. If if there was no abuse, why not? Why can’t you let them love each other? And incest is baked right into the cake with the mother and son, obviously. If they are not going to have babies, who will it hurt? Why can’t you let them love each other?
thebrokenrattle on March 15, 2013 at 12:39 PM
blink on March 15, 2013 at 12:49 PM
With the obvious exception of single parenthood via death of a spouse or serious abuse necessitating it, yes, I have a deep contempt for the hook-up culture and the notion that everything under the sun is a “family.” The black family has been destroyed by single parenthood, no fault-divorce, and cultural rot brought on primarily Democratic rule over the places blacks live. Every single social pathology is greatly exacerbated by an unstable home. Lionizing women who divorce their husbands (women initaite 90% of divorces) for petty reasons by claiming it’s noble to be a single mother has set our culture back a century.
As far as legislation, I’d start by ending no-fault divorce. Right now there is no reason for any reasonable male to get married when his wife can unilaterally disband the marriage, then take all his children and half his assets with no accountability for how this transfer is spent on the child.
Then I’d move to the welfare state, and end its encouragement of cohabitation rather than marriage – especially targetting the policy of more illegitimate kids = more bennies.
Elderly couples are in this instance presumably male and female, and therefore can fulfil the child’s developmental needs. They are also unlikely to adopt if they think their health and energy would be a concern.
Homosexual couples cannot do this – ever – by definition – as an inherent part of their single gender make-up. I emphasize it only to drill it home that your relationship is functionally different at its core. It is incomplete by design and not by accident. Your “family” as it currently exists is an eros relationship between two men. Without that eros it would merely be philia, and your boyfriend would just be your buddy – as it was in the time before two men could hold a deep affection for each other before society had to sexualize everything. I choose to blame the 60′s and 70′s for that, and the miserable rot of that generation will take possibly two or more generations to eradicate.
Don’t misunderstand, I don’t have any desire to prevent you and your boyfriend do with each other through legal means – I am not a leftist. Just don’t force me to enshrine into law the pretension your relationship is equivalent to the single relationship foundational to societal order.
Marriage cannot be destroyed be leaving it alone, it can only be destroyed by hostile government action. If everything is a marriage than nothing is – just like if everything is a family then nothing is. Definitions are by their nature exclusive of things outside that definition.
BKennedy on March 15, 2013 at 1:08 PM
Bigot
These organizations will change their policies. Will you cling to your bigoted beliefs?
have historically been linked to social ills like child abuse, domestic/spousal abuse, rights violations, incest and the like. This is why they have been determined by the American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, American Counseling Association to be treated and supported by their members.
Please. Their bigotedly biased research and beliefs will most certainly change.
Bigot.
Giving everyone the right to marry as they please is NOT a completely different issue.
blink on March 15, 2013 at 1:43 PM
Collectively, this is a bunch of BS. There are some extremely rare cases of individuals whose sex development does not occur normally, and wind up with what could be accurately described as gender disorders.
None of this has the first thing to do with homosexual behavior. What is actually notable about research in this area has been the number of studies that purported or were represented to show that homosexuality had a physiological basis, but were based on studies without adequate controls and/or extremely limited samples. For instance, LaVay’s first study that claimed to find brain differences between heterosexual men, homosexual men, and women, was in part based on a portion of the brain sensitive to testosterone. All of the homosexuals used in the study who had a brain difference from heterosexual men were in fact suffering from AIDS, which leads to low testosterone.
Until scientific research clearly demonstrates that homosexuality is always tied to clear physical differences between homosexuals and normal men, it remains an unproven assertion, and this claim that homosexuality is inborn is not to be treated with any respect.
There is certainly no reason to re-order the single most fundamental social institution in existence based on an unproven claim that homosexuality is somehow immutable.
Now, real science in the real world. There are two sexes in the world, male and female. There are no other sexes. If you as a man are unable to have a normal social and sexual relationship with a woman, then you are, in some sense, broken and not working normally. That doesn’t mean that you should be forced to pretend anything, but it does mean that we shouldn’t try to pretend that your broken or incompetent state should be mandated to be just as good as someone who is functioning normally.
And this SSM debate is all about forcing everyone to pretend that homosexuality is just as good as normal sexuality.
It isn’t.
There Goes The Neighborhood on March 15, 2013 at 8:08 PM
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