Sen. Rob Portman’s (R-OH) evolution on the issue of marriage equality—from opponent to advocate—followed a deeply personal conversation he had with his son two years ago. It’s a conversation countless families must grapple with and a conversation that now underscores the disconnect between the head and the heart of conservatism’s view of marriage equality at a pivotal moment in the debate.

Though Portman’s experience is heartening, Americans must demand more from their leaders than public acknowledgement of private family truths. Portman, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the recent wave of prominent conservatives coming out in support of equality should be commended for demonstrating a commitment to family above the politics of the moment. Still, respecting equality under the law should be a basic qualification for office, not an epiphany a lawmaker experiences after recognizing that inequality hurts the people he loves and the millions of parents and children he serves.

The damage is caused largely by the anti-gay laws and policies that their party has championed for years. DOMA, for example, is a legislative reflection of the discrimination that forces hundreds of thousands of gay and lesbian children to remain hidden in the closet living in shame of who they are. DOMA is the reason that same-sex couples face a higher tax burden than their heterosexual counterparts, resulting in less income and higher poverty rates among the LGBT community. And DOMA demonstrates that LGBT people are still treated like second class citizens in a country that supposedly values equality and justice above all else.

In coming out, one of the most powerful lessons learned is that telling your story may make it easier for the next person. By coming out to loving parents, Portman’s son made it that much easier for others to do the same. In fact, his example clearly demonstrates the ways in which coming out to your friends and family can enrich their lives, and may change the lives of people you’ll never meet.

Last month, 131 prominent Republican politicians signed a brief calling on the Supreme Court to end DOMA and rule in support of marriage equality for same-sex couples. These Republicans have acknowledged what a strong majority of Americans already know: that there is no reason for a Washington bureaucrat to stand between LGBT Americans and the altar. While the degree to which Portman’s evolution will move his party forward is still uncertain, by sharing an honest love for his son and concern for his future, he will make it that much easier for others facing similar circumstances. Hopefully, Portman’s conversion will inspire lawmakers to recognize the damage their anti-equality policies are causing to their LGBT constituents before they realize the victims are their loved ones.

Jon Shields is a Special Assistant for the Communications team at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The Washington Post published an opinion piece Friday by conservative pundit George Will called “The shaky science behind same-sex marriage.” Though Will has admitted there is an “emerging consensus” for same-sex marriage and predicted that the issue will prevail in the Courts, he highlights a brief from Maggie Gallagher’s Institute for Marriage and Public Policy that argues against equality by suggesting that the social science research currently available is not a sufficient rationale for that victory:

A brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court concerning the California case by conservative professors Leon Kass and Harvey Mansfield and the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy warns that “the social and behavioral sciences have a long history of being shaped and driven by politics and ideology.” And research about, for example, the stability of same-sex marriages or child-rearing by same-sex couples is “radically inconclusive” because these are recent phenomena and they provide a small sample from which to conclude that these innovations will be benign.

Unlike the physical sciences, the social sciences can rarely settle questions using “controlled and replicable experiments.” Today “there neither are nor could possibly be any scientifically valid studies from which to predict the effects of a family structure that is so new and so rare.” Hence there can be no “scientific basis for constitutionalizing same-sex marriage.”

The brief does not argue against same-sex marriage as social policy, other than by counseling caution about altering foundational social institutions when guidance from social science is as yet impossible. The brief is a preemptive refutation of inappropriate invocations of spurious social science by supporters of same-sex marriage.

Will endorses two arguments here, both of which are unsupportable. The first is that any social science that supports a liberal position shouldn’t be trusted because social science already has a liberal bias. The second is that it’s reasonable to conclude that it’s impossible to measure anything that hasn’t been legalized, even if legalizing it is the only way to test it. Together, these form a tautological argument that social science is only valid and useful if it supports keeping things the way they already are, which is not only a very narrow dismissal of the work social scientists already do, but also a philosophy that inherently prevents change.

Will then proceeds to demonstrate just how susceptible he is to conservatives’ fraudulent interpretations of what science is available:
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House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) — who is spending millions of taxpayer dollars opposing marriage equality — told ABC’s This Week that he could never see himself supporting same-sex unions, despite the growing evolution towards marriage for all within the Republican Party.

Responding to Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) change of heart on the issue, Boehner said that he “appreciates” his friend’s new position, but insisted that “I believe that marriage is a union of a man and a woman” and predicted that he would not change his mind even if he found out that his own son is gay:

MARTHA RADDATZ (HOST): Can you imagine yourself in a situation where you reversed your decision as Portman has on gay marriage if a child of yours or someone you love told you they were gay.

BOEHNER: Listen, I believe marriage is a union between one man and one woman. It’s what I grew up with, it’s what i belive, it’s what my church teaches me and I can’t imagine that position would ever change.

Watch it:

Research indicates that people who have a close gay friend or family member are “more than twice as likely” to support same-sex marriage.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) attacked Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) for supporting marriage equality at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday.

Speaking in a sideroom, Huelskamp blasted Portman’s announcement this week that he has evolved to favor same-sex marriage two years after learning his own son was gay. “Here’s a senator who couldn’t deliver his own home state in the presidential election,” Huelskamp said dismissively. He continued, “somehow, we’re supposed to believe that if we abandon traditional marriage, that liberals are going to flock to us,” calling Portman’s position a “capitulation.”

ThinkProgress asked Huelskamp whether he would re-examine his own feelings on marriage equality if it turned out he had a gay son like Portman, but the Kansas Republican was unmoved by the prospect. “I support traditional marriage,” Huelskamp simply retorted.

KEYES: Do you have a sense on, if it were your son who came out and told you that he was gay, how you would react to that announcement?

HUELSKAMP: Well, I agree with Sen. Portman when he ran for election. And that’s the principle. The principle is, traditional marriage and family is the foundation of society. It’s been a conservative bedrock principle for many years. And one thing that we have to do as conservatives, I believe, is actually communicate the value of marriage and family for the children. [...] Bill Clinton and myself, Bill Clinton in 1997 had the same position I have today. Actually Barack Obama had the same position two years ago. Isn’t it amazing how you read the tea leaves, you read the polls, and at the end of the day something suddenly changes over night?

KEYES: So, to clarify, you would still oppose same-sex marriage even if your own son came out?

HUELSKAMP: I support traditional marriage.

Watch it:

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) — who was considered a frontrunner for the GOP vice presidential nomination in 2012 — came out in support of marriage equality on Friday morning, becoming the only sitting Republican senator to support same-sex marriage. But you wouldn’t know that from watching Fox News, since the network virtually ignored the story.

A ThinkProgress analysis using TV Eyes found that the right-leaning channel mentioned the word “Portman” just three times from 6:00 AM to 11:59 PM on Friday, while competitors MSNBC and CNN — which broke the story early that morning — covered the senator’s evolution extensively, mentioning “Portman” 27 and 40 times, respectively:

Fox News has a habit of ignoring pro-LGBT news that does not appeal to the conservative base. For instance, the network offered slim coverage to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the passage of New York’s historic same-sex marriage law, and failed to report that former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman — who had orchestrated President Bush’s gay-bashing 2004 re-election campaign — had come out as gay.