Remember Rob Portman?
He is the Republican U.S. Senator who publicly switched from
opposing gay marriage to supporting it because his college-age son came out as
gay.
I have been thinking about Portman quite a bit and what that
journey must have been like for him as I’ve reflected on the magnitude of last
week’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling making it legal in all 50 states for
same-sex couples to marry.
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| Will and Rob Portman (Credit: CBS News) |
For Portman, a strongly religious conservative from Ohio, up
until his March 15, 2013 change of heart, he was staunchly against gay
marriage. In 1996, Portman co-sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act when he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Defense of Marriage Act defined marriage for federal
purposes as the union of one man and one woman, and it allowed individual
states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages that were legally granted by
other states. The act, now ruled unconstitutional, imposed constraints on the
benefits received by all legally married same-sex couples.
Publicly, for 20 years in political life, Portman
firmly stood by this position on how marriage should be defined. In addition,
in 1999, he voted for a measure that prohibited same-sex couples in Washington
state from adopting children.
“I Want All of Our Kids To Have It…”
So, his announcement over two years ago was an enormous
shift. In an interview with CNN, Portman described how his son,
Will, told him and his wife he was gay and how this changed his view.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that for me, personally, I
think this is something that we should allow people to do, to get married and
to have the joy and stability of marriage that I’ve had for over 26 years,” he
told CNN’s Dana Bash. “I want all of our kids to have it, including my son who
is gay.”
Will Portman had told his parents more than two years
earlier that he was gay. He was a freshman at Yale University. In a 2013
article titled “Portman: Coming Out” published in the Yale Daily News
shortly after his father’s bombshell about-face, Will described in detail his
painful ordeal.
He wrote: “I came to Yale as a freshman in the fall of
2010 with two big uncertainties hanging over my head: whether my dad would get
elected to the Senate in November, and whether I’d ever work up the courage to
come out of the closet.”
Portman, who worked closely along side his father during his campaign for the Senate, said he’d tried to muster up the courage to tell his
parents in person, but he couldn’t do it. Eventually, from Yale he wrote a letter telling
them he was gay and over-nighted it to them.
His parents called Will as soon as they received the letter.
Will wrote, “They were surprised to learn I was gay, and full of questions, but
absolutely rock-solid supportive. That was the beginning of the end of feeling
ashamed about who I was.”
“Wrong and Insulting” or a Show of Solidarity?
Reading that line makes me think of all the people for whom
feeling ashamed about who they are is not over. They cannot come out to their
parents, their siblings, their friends or their co-workers. They fear being
judged. They feel trapped and, like Portman, very much alone.
The Supreme Court’s ruling comes after many years of gay
rights activists fighting for equality, battling against states that put laws
on their books banning same-sex marriage. Last week, when I looked at the
picture of the White House illuminated with rainbow colors expressing solidarity
with the gay community and support of same-sex couples, I thought of the
powerful message of validation and support it sends millions of people who have felt shut out and marginalized by our society.
Others, like conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly, called the
rainbow lights “wrong and insulting” and an “in your face gesture” by the White
House. It may have been a victory
lap, of sorts, but I suspect the White House most of all wanted to send a
clearly visible message that change has indeed come.
In Rob Portman’s case, change didn’t happen overnight. It
took him over 2 years to come out in support of same-sex marriage. It was
complicated. In 2012, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney considered Portman a possible
running mate.
Portman said he told Romney’s camp about his son being gay
during the vetting process. Perhaps that’s why, in part, Romney chose
Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan as his running mate.
Follow Your Heart
Portman said in contemplating his shifting view on same-sex marriage, he talked to clergy
and also talked to former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter Mary
is openly gay. According to Portman, Cheney’s advice was to “follow (his)
heart” on the matter.
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| U.S. Supreme Court Justices |
In the wake of the High Court’s ruling, vigorous debate has
followed. Many believe the High Court overstepped its authority in legalizing
same-sex marriage. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his
dissent, which he read in part from the bench (something he’s never done before
in his 10 years on the Court) that the act of the majority represented a threat
to democracy.
While Roberts and others feel the Court ran roughshod over
elected representatives, others firmly disagree, saying this was the kind of
enormous case that took the courage and will of an unelected, independent
judiciary to make a decision.
We can be sure the debate will continue for some time. In
this Presidential election season, the rhetoric is already flowing as just this
morning Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz said the majority justices “violated
their judicial oath” and called for Supreme Court term limits.
In the end, it’s possible that given all the facts before
them, the five majority justices – Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan—acted as much with their
hearts as they did with their heads.
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