Hero Sen. Rob Portman Courageously Endorses Equal Rights For His Family Members

A Republican did a good thing today, guys. In a story that came out meremomentsafter midnight, it was revealed that Ohio Sen. Rob Portman is now in favor of gay marriage . It's true! He didn't always feel that way, but he's been thinking a lot, and talking to a lot of folks, and now he thinks it's about time we stopped with all the nonsense discrimination.

It's a big deal! We should get a cake to celebrate. How much icing do you think it would take to spell out"Fuck that guy"?

In that he is in the party that proactively works to oppress the group of people he has decided to support, you may be tempted to give Portman some credit for this one; resist those temptations — even the ones that aren't sinful and unnatural. The Cleveland Plain-Dealer explains why:

Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman on Thursday announced he has reversed his longtime opposition to same-sex marriage after reconsidering the issue because his 21-year-old son, Will, is gay.

When it was other people's children having their rights restricted expressly because of their sexual orientation, our esteemed congressman was more than happy to support both a ban on gay adoption in D.C. and an amendment to the Constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

But now, whoaaaa, there's a gay Portman, and suddenly things are Just. Not. Fair.

Portman said his son, a junior at Yale University, told him and his wife, Jane, that he's gay and "it was not a choice, it was who he is and that he had been that way since he could remember."

Hey, that kind of sounds like... hm...What gay people have been saying this entire time.

The conversation the Portmans had with their son two years ago led to him to evolve on the issue after he consulted clergy members, friends including former Vice President Dick Cheney, and the Bible.

"Oh, you're gay, and I have come out publicly as saying that makes you less of a person? LET ME FETCH MY BIBLE." Stand-up guy, this Portman. Thinks for himself.

Also, Portman's son came outtwo years ago? Paul Ryan probably looooves that gay son — otherwise, he might not have been the one running for vice president! Thank you, Paul says to Will The Gay Son, for disqualifying your father from being taken seriously in the party that actually raises money by hating you just for being alive.

If Ohio voters were to reconsider the gay marriage ban they adopted in 2004, Portman said he might support it, depending on its wording, though hewould not be likely to take a leadership role on the issuejust as he didn't take a leadership role in 2004. He stressed that he doesn't want to force his views on others...

"I don't want to force my views on others," says the guy who voted for a discriminatory amendment to the Constitution. Of theUnited States.

Portman, who backed the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act now under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, said he now thinks parts of that bill should be repealed, thoughhe hasn't considered introducing such legislation himselfbecause economic policy issues are his specialty.

ECONOMIC POLICIES! ARE HIS SPECIALTY! Never in the history of "coming out in favor of things" has there been a more chickenshit excuse offered for anything. Never ever. "Ah, well, yes, this is an important issue, sure, and I'd help out, but I'm very busy with MY CALCULATIONS."

Which means, essentially, that Portman's "endorsement" is pretty meaningless — he won't support gay rights in Ohio, or in Congress, or, he says, in the Supreme Court, which means he's even less useful than professional rich person Foster Friess' support of gay rights, and THAT guy shoveled millions of dollars into the campaign of Rick "Gays Are Dog-Fuckers" Santorum.

Both Portman and Friess, like Cheney, have done that thing where they start being nice to gays not because "it seems pretty crappy not to be, come on," but because somebody they're fond of turns out to be gay — you're only a sinner until you get the "A Republican likes me!" exemption card. They check for them at the Pearly Gates — little square things, made of cardboard, rainbows and abjectly self-centered hypocrisy.

But Portman just isn't the "gay rights" legislator — it's not his fault! He's theeconomics guy. Just look at all the economics work he has been doing: He sponsors a bill about commemorative stamps about once a week, for starters. But he also tried to ban bath salts after the Miami "zombie" attack , repeal some regulation on highway rest stops , make the Treasury mint football-themed coins, find "abandoned human remains" that might be eligible for burial in a national cemetery, and yes, of course, there is also the bill he introduced less than two months ago, to make sure nobody wassmuggling minors around the country for abortions.

He simply has no time for the gays, what with the economy being destroyed by underage girls paying for abortions with money thatdoesn't even have a football player on it.

Nobody's saying a replacing the Jefferson nickel with a bust of Chuck Bednarik wouldn't be a gas, but it is probably at least slightly less important than the issue at hand. Which, now that it affects the good Sen. Portman, he cares very deeply about — so deeply, in fact, that he will tell a newspaper about it, and then never give a shit again.

[ Plain-Dealer ]