Rob Portman, Strategy, and Politics of Character

[Update: via Dan Nexon, check out this post on this issue by David Meyer, Coming Out and Opinion Change.]

This week, conservative Senator Rob Portman announced his support for marriage equality.  Portman reported that his experience with his own son was the catalyst for his change of position.

The moment of the Marriage Equality Act vote at the capitol building in Albany NY June 24, 2011. In the balcony of the chambers. photographed by the Celebration Chapel of Kingston NY.

“I’m announcing today a change of heart on an issue that a lot of people feel strongly about,” Portman said. “It has to do with gay couples’ opportunity to marry. And during my career in the House and also last couple years here in the Senate, you know, I’ve taken a position against gay marriage, rooted in part in my faith and my faith tradition. And had a very personal experience, which is my son came to Jane, my wife, and I, told us that he was gay and that it was not a choice and that, you know he, that’s just part of who he is, and he’d been that way ever since he could remember.”

Portman said his son’s revelation led him to drop his opposition to same-sex marriage. “And that launched an interesting process for me, which was kind of rethinking my position,” he said. “You know, talking to my pastor and other religious leaders and going through a process of, at the end, changing my position on the issue. I now believe people ought to have the right to get married.”

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A Rolling Conversation on the State of the Union at Jubilee

Elias Isquith has put together an interesting group of people to comment on the State of the Union, and surprisingly I’m one of them. I’ll be adding the links on this post at they come up. Check it out and maybe even comment. We are…not of the same mind on this thing.

Here’s my opening: “The fact that people have such different readings of this speech isn’t that surprising. It reads to me like it was designed to do just that – let each of us hear what we want to hear.”

Announcement: A Rolling Conversation on the State of the Union

The State of Austerity (Elias Isquith)

Ethan Gach — State of the Union Address Shows Obama’s Priorities: Everything

Robert Greer — Is Obama the Liberal Great Communicator?

David Kaib — The State of the Union Is…Ambivalent

[Update: 2-15-13 a.m.]

Shawn Gude — The Problem with Piecemeal Reform

[Update: 2-20-13 a.m.]

The State of the Union’s Quiet Radicalism  (Elias Isquith)

Shereen Shafi — “Transparency,” Drone Strikes, and the Conditions of Public Support

[Update 2-26-13 p.m.]

The State of the Union’s Crises (Alan Kantz)