Yesterday Rob Portman of Ohio became the first sitting Republican U.S. senator to endorse marriage equality. In a guest editorial for the Columbus Post-Dispatch, Portman explained that he reconsidered his opinion on gay marriage after his son came out of the closet.

As a rule, I welcome any public support for marriage equality from Republican ranks. It’s nice to see a current elected official join the long list of campaign professionals and former GOP office-holders who support civil marriage rights. Still, something about Portman’s comments yesterday rubbed me the wrong way.

Excerpt from Portman’s March 15 editorial for the Columbus Post-Dispatch:

I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn’t deny them the opportunity to get married.

That isn’t how I’ve always felt. As a congressman, and more recently as a senator, I opposed marriage for same-sex couples. Then something happened that led me to think through my position in a much deeper way.

Two years ago, my son Will, then a college freshman, told my wife, Jane, and me that he is gay. […]

At the time, my position on marriage for same-sex couples was rooted in my faith tradition that marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman. Knowing that my son is gay prompted me to consider the issue from another perspective: that of a dad who wants all three of his kids to lead happy, meaningful lives with the people they love, a blessing Jane and I have shared for 26 years.

Portman went on to make the typical conservative case for gay marriage:

We conservatives believe in personal liberty and minimal government interference in people’s lives. We also consider the family unit to be the fundamental building block of society. We should encourage people to make long-term commitments to each other and build families, so as to foster strong, stable communities and promote personal responsibility.

Our country needs people like Portman to deliver that message. He may lose some right-wing grassroots support, but he may also be able to persuade some traditional conservatives to open their minds about this issue.

Most important, as a former high-level Bush administration official and debate trainer to the last three Republican presidential nominees, Portman has strong Washington establishment cred. Maybe his comments will give a nudge to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, the likely swing votes when the high court hears two marriage equality cases later this month. Portman told CNN’s Dana Bash yesterday that he is announcing his new position now partly because he “recently became comfortable with his decision to shift his position on gay marriage,” and also because he knew reporters would ask him about the issue because of the upcoming Supreme Court hearing.

I feel that I “should” admire Portman for speaking out. But when I saw the news yesterday, my immediate feeling was, “Here we go again, another Republican magically develops empathy once an issue concerns his immediate family.” Where was Rob Portman when his political party systematically attacked the LGBT community in order to gain an electoral advantage during the past decade? Just doing his thing:

Though he is a staunch conservative, Portman was never outspoken against gay marriage. But he consistently voted against it.

While in Congress, he supported a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and voted for a bill prohibiting gay couples in Washington from adopting. […]

“But you know, what happened to me is really personal. I mean, I hadn’t thought a lot about this issue. Again, my focus has been on other issues over my public policy career,” said Portman. […]

What would Portman say to gay constituents who may be glad he’s changing his position on gay marriage, but also wondering why it took having a gay son to come around to supporting their rights?

“Well, I would say that, you know, I’ve had a change of heart based on a personal experience. That’s certainly true,” he responded with a shoulder shrug.

I think Portman owes his constituents a real apology. Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment banning civil unions as well as same-sex marriage in 2004, as part of a successful Republican strategy to deliver the state for President George W. Bush. Portman’s gay and lesbian constituents can’t hope for the happiness he wants for his own son, nor can they even hope for civil unions, which just passed the Colorado legislature this week.

I don’t hear any remorse from Portman. In contrast, former Minnesota Republican state legislator Lynne Osterman almost broke down crying when she told lawmakers that she will always regret the politically expedient vote she cast against marriage equality.

Like Jonathan Chait, I don’t find it admirable that Portman “went along with his party’s opposition to gay marriage because it didn’t affect him,” and changed his position out of love for his son. Like Matthew Yglesias, I am annoyed by this kind of conversion.

Rob Portman doesn’t have a son with a pre-existing medical condition who’s locked out of the health insurance market. Rob Portman doesn’t have a son engaged in peasant agriculture whose livelihood is likely to be wiped out by climate change. Rob Portman doesn’t have a son who’ll be malnourished if SNAP benefits are cut. So Rob Portman doesn’t care.

It’s a great strength of the movement for gay political equality that lots of important and influential people happen to have gay children. That obviously does change people’s thinking. And good for them.

But if Portman can turn around on one issue once he realizes how it touches his family personally, shouldn’t he take some time to think about how he might feel about other issues that don’t happen to touch him personally?

Josh Barro finds this criticism of Portman “uncharitable”:

Chait takes this as Portman deciding that public policy should serve the personal interests of his family; I read it more as Portman’s family experience causing him to feel greater empathy with gays and lesbians in general. He doesn’t want to change policy to make his family happy. His changed understanding of what makes his family happy has changed his understanding about what makes families in general happy.[…]

Unlike members of the general public, it is an elected official’s job to consider the needs and rights of everyone, not just the people immediately around him or her. We shouldn’t have to wait for people like Mary Cheney to come along and trigger Republican politicians’ empathy; they should care about gay people even if their relatives aren’t gay.

There’s another way of looking at the gay-relative effect, however. The push from inside the family isn’t just about bridging an empathy gap; it also helps Republican politicians who would like to support same-sex marriage bridge a political gap. Having a gay son will actually make it easier politically for Portman to support same-sex marriage. His opponents will temper their attacks on him for fear of being seen to attack his son; voters skeptical of same-sex marriage may still relate to Portman’s choice to stand up for his family.

That’s a good point, and Barro is also right to point out that many parents who oppose marriage equality haven’t treated their own gay children with as much “decency” as Portman.

Barro added on his twitter feed yesterday, “There’s a reason most nitpicking Portman’s motives are straight. Gays know the importance of personal interactions in changing views on gays.”

I don’t doubt the importance of personal relationships in changing attitudes toward any minority group. Working in a small group with people of another race has been shown to reduce racism, for instance. Speaking about marriage equality during an Iowa visit in 2009, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean gave credit to all gays and lesbians over the years who have “stood up and said who you are,” because it becomes much harder to say and think bad things about a group when you know the group includes your friends and neighbors. “[E]ven if people don’t think, for religious reasons, that gay people ought to be able to get married, they’re also respectful of their neighbors who may have a gay person in their family,” Dean said.

Former Iowa State Senator Jeff Angelo has said that conversations with gay and lesbian people helped bring him around to supporting marriage equality. As a member of the Iowa Senate, Angelo voted for a constitutional amendment on marriage in 2004, but two years ago he founded the pro-equality group Iowa Republicans for Freedom. Current Iowa House Republican Josh Byrnes changed his position on gay marriage after learning that a high school friend had married his partner and adopted children.

Meanwhile, Iowa House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer has a gay son, but that didn’t stop her from voting for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in 2011. Her only evolution on this issue was a quiet decision not to co-sponsor the marriage amendment this year. My own State Senator Charles Schneider strives for the ever-popular tortured non-bigoted Republican act, emphasizing that marriage is a “difficult” issue, and that he doesn’t look down on his gay friends and colleagues “as people,” even though he endorses a political stance that would make them second-class citizens.

Compared to Republicans like Upmeyer and Schneider, Portman is a hero.

But I will be more impressed when mainstream Republicans are able to acknowledge basic minority rights without being closely related to a member of the minority group.

What do you think, Bleeding Heartland readers?

UPDATE: Frank Bruni asks an interesting question.

In any case, my question for and about Portman, a decent and thoughtful man I’ve known for many years, isn’t why it took a gay son to move him to his current stance, but whether it really took a gay son to do that, and whether he was here or almost here a while back, but just didn’t say so.

What’s too infrequently noted or written is how many Republicans who aren’t on the party’s far right have privately, silently accepted and supported gays and lesbians but have stayed publicly mum, and articulated contrary positions, in the interests of political survival. A big part of what’s changing now isn’t their hearts. It’s their belief that they can be true to their hearts without committing political suicide, because America has made extraordinary progress, and because there’s no turning back.