Your first set of quotation marks accurately quote Senator Warner’s words.
Your second set of quotation marks enclose words that do not, so far as I can tell, accurately quote Senator Portman’s words.
Here is what Senator Portman said:
I think you can believe you have rational reasons to oppose same-sex marriage. If you’re taught by your parents that families consist of a mom and a dad, who get married and then make children together, and you’re also told that men can’t make children together and women can’t, it follows that marriage is for men and women only. That is itself a rational line of thinking.
However, rational does not mean correct. A perfectly rational position can be unfair, and wrong. And there can be missing reasoning which would identify another position as being more correct, and just as rational.
Marriage need not be simply about children, but about the love two people share. And if you can be convinced that people can love each other regardless of gender, and if you can learn that yes, even gay people sometimes want and have children too, and finally, if you understand that rights are *natural *rights, rights are things we have unless society has good reason and due process to take away those rights, not a specific set of delineated rules that the state allows for you, then one must take the position that gay people are free to marry one another, unless it can be proven that it is both in the interest of the state and the society, and also perfectly moral, to deny those couples.
It’s a position that requires you to think deeper and understand on a philosophical level, just because something is currently illegal, and taught by certain churches to be immoral, that does not mean it is actually wrong, or that it is morally right to deny certain natural rights to people who have done no wrong. Challenging the status quo requires the consent of the masses in our democratic society, but just because changing our laws requires the will of the people, that does not mean that it is a fair and equitable society when the status quo is upheld by popular vote. It just means more people have to be convinced of what is the case.
Often what stands in the way of that change are the misconceptions about gay people propagated by religious and political groups who think they have a vested interest in denying these rights to same-sex couples. Almost all of those arguments are completely irrational, but that doesn’t mean that all arguments against same-sex marriage are irrational.
But having a rational argument doesn’t mean you are correct either. You can rationally oppose same-sex marriage, depending on your argument, but it doesn’t make you right.
Well said.
Related to the point of the thread, I don’t think Rob Portman can be warmly welcomed as a brave, risk-taking champion of the same-sex rights cause. It doesn’t take that much in the way of guts to shift position with the political winds.
We’re talking about oh, he had a gay son now he changed his mind, that’s not brave that’s self-interest above principle. If only it were that pure. He had a gay son and still didn’t publicly change position until years later, when it was politically safe. Rob Portman isn’t even a brave but self-interested dick, he’s a cowardly dick.
But now he’s a coward on the correct side of history. I won’t be throwing him a parade anytime soon, but welcome to the side that is right and will prevail, I guess.
So – does that same calculus apply to Mark Warner? He, too, didn’t publicly change position until it was politically safe. Indeed, he didn’t change until AFTER Portman changed!
I don’t know if the same calculus applies. Is he gay or does he have a gay relative?
However, I’d agree something similar applies to Warner. Dunno if it’s better or worse, but all else being equal, later is worse.
The true heroes of the gay rights movement were the ones that championed the cause when it was unpopular. These johnny-come-latelies do not impress me much at all. These folks are allies for the gay rights movement in much the same way Italy was an ally to us in World War II. They’re with us after they were against us. Woo freaking hoo. I wouldn’t expect a medal.
I’d say Obama was one of the last people who took any significant risk in endorsing gay rights. His public shift took place before his last election, when history had shown that being pro-gay nationally was a losing bet.
I’m not thrilled it took him that long, but he then proceeded to actually do something about it, all while it could actually cost him something.
I’d note that public support seems to increasing rapidly since, probably due to Obama surviving that gamble. Perhaps these folks were for gay rights all along, but had to be closeted about it. How ironic.