JCC The U.S. Politics thread

Maryland has repealed the Death Penalty, and the current Republican Senator from Ohio now supports gay marriage

Shouldn't we be outraged that politicians change their positions based on what's best for their immediate family?

Yes, but not this time.

If it seems like it's heartfelt change (I'm not a fan of Portman, but everything I've read and seen today makes me think this is the case with him) and not because they think it'll curry them political favor(see Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush flip - flopping on everything)? Then no outrage from me.

In other news North Dakota closer to making into law the strictist abortion ban in the nation.

No, we should. It shows a complete lack of empathy in his part. He has made a career out of denying rights to certain individuals and only changed his mind because now it affects someone he cares about. How can you trust a politician like that to properly represent his or her constituents when they are so blatantly self-serving?

Well then every single politician should be drummed out of Washington then, because their all blatantly self-serving.

You're right, D-L, and what I should have written was that in this particular case it didn't bother me. But of course, it's not a good thing in general. This was a good development, but it can be argued that it happened for the wrong reason.

I don't see this as self-serving, at all.



As I just wrote in the other thread:


The son told him 2 years ago, so it's probably been a long personal journey for him.

There are some gay people who told their parents decades ago, and the parents still don't support them.

Rob Portman is the first sitting Republican Senator to ever have this position. A majority of the people in Ohio, his state, still don't support it. He's been mentioned as a VP or even presidential candidate, and he probably just gave that up. And will probably be primaried now too (and most Republicans still strongly reject gay marriage, especially in purple/red states like Ohio, so he could definitely lose now)

It seems Portman changed his view because he realized it was the right thing to do, his son just helped him see that.

CPAC quotes on the various news channels are making me lol. I am not entirely stupid, despite the electoral college numbers the last election was close. But if all the GOP has to offer is the same crap offerred in this last election then I am quite optomistic for another Dem win in the White Hosue for 2016.

It's the same as Nancy Reagan suddenly being concerned for Alzheimer's patients and Gabrielle Giffords and James Brady becoming pro-gun control. Blech. Empathy? What's that?

Portman's also trying to position himself as a "mainstream" candidate for President in light of support for same-sex marriage going further into a solid majority and the Supreme Court's seemingly likely decision to strike down DOMA and Proposition 8 (and perhaps all gay marriage bans) later this year

I might be missing something. He said he consulted Cheney about it and mentioned Cheney changed hos own view? When? Some non-public thing we never heard of? Shenanigans I say.

Cheney has a lesbian daughter. Even during the Bush administration he was silent on the whole gay issue. Go figure!

I thought Dick Cheney always publically supported gay marriage?

Not really. A huge supermajority of Republicans still reject gay marriage. This doesn't seem political at all.

And it's just learning through life experiences. Sometimes people make the right decisions and have the right views from the start, sometimes it takes personal events for them to realy re-evaluate their own positions. It's better if it's the first, but the latter is much more common. Better late than never.

I didn't say it would work and get him the nomination. But he probably has half a brain and realizes that Mitt Romney lost in large part for espousing the homophobic, racist, plutocratic views that a "huge supermajority" of Republicans agree with.

I see it as the herald of a Republican softening on gay marriage issues in general. Like any good political party, they will abandon their principles when those principles become unpopular.

Would you feel the same way he if changed his other policies for the same reason?

For example, what if he changed his stance on economic issues because of changes in his own personal financial situation? Would you applaud him then?

Cheney didn't start supporting it until he was well out of office. He also never said whether or not he supported the Constitutional Amendment to ban SSM when his boss the President (Bush) proposed it. (at least I can't recall whether he was yay or nay on the proposed amendment while he was still VP)

To your point about Portman, this was one of the people who CO - AUTHORED DOMA, and now he's saying it should be struck down. Many republicans/Tea Partiers are still clinging to DOMA. If he does have any Presidential aspirations, I think he blew them up in a big way today.

What the Republicans need to stop doing is this:

http://gawker.com/5990863/conservat...o-chaos-after-audience-member-defends-slavery

Conservative Panel on ‘the Race Card’ Turns to Chaos After Audience Member Defends Slavery

A panel on rebutting charges of racism at a conservative political conference went exactly was well as you might expect when one audience member suggested slaves should have been thankful to their masters for "feeding... and housing" them, earning scattered applause and a collective chorus of "Ooooooohh....!"

The audience member, a North Carolina gentleman named Scott Terry, wanted to know if Republicans should endorse segregation (Scott: no).

After the presenter, K. Carl Smith of Frederick Douglass Republicans, answered by referencing a letter by Frederick Douglass forgiving his former master, [Terry] said "For what? For feeding him and housing him?" Several people in the audience cheered and applauded Terry's outburst.

After the exchange, Terry muttered under his breath, "why can't we just have segregation?"

ThinkProgress, bless their hearts, caught up with Terry later, and was just as charming as you could hope:

At one point, a woman challenged him on the Republican Party's roots, to which Terry responded, "I didn't know the legacy of the Republican Party included women correcting men in public."

The panel, TP reports, "continued to be racked in controversy." It is unclear if the attendees did, in fact, learn how to "trump the race card."

I'm in favor of people always re-evaluating their positions based on new information and experiences.

And it's clear he didn't change his position "just" because he had a gay son. The son came out to him 2 years ago, so it took him a while. And many parents never accept their gay children. He probably leaned what gay people and gay relationships are really like, and how it didn't match up to the conservative propaganda he'd been hearing and probably believed for years.

if he had been pro- gay marriage, and then found out that his son was a gay promiscuous drug-user and then changed his position to anti-gay-marriage, would you think that this change would be justified?

How many parents of slutty drug addicted heterosexuals change their opinions of heterosexual marriage? Your question is ridiculous.

The entrenchedness of people's opinions regarding heterosexual marriage is not relevant to the point I'm making.

Why does it bother you so much that people feel positively about this?

What's your point?


If Rob Portman already supported same-sex marriage, then he'd probably already know that not all gay people are promiscuous drug-users, even if his son happened to be one, so that wouldn't make it justified. (This is assuming that he has a problem with being promiscuous or using drugs.)



Should people never change their opinions as a result of new information and new life experiences?

My point is that public people ought not to let their public policy be decided by private concerns. Or, at the very least, that they shouldn't be applauded for such behavior...