National
GOP senator Portman backs same-sex marriage
Ohio Republican grew to support marriage equality after learning son is gay


Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) has become to first Republican U.S. senator to support marriage equality (Photo public domain)
In a surprising and historical development, U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) on Thursday became the first sitting Republican senator to come out in favor of same-sex marriage.
Several media outlets reported this news late Thursday night. The Ohio Republican said he grew to support marriage equality after his son Will, a student at Yale University, came out as gay to his family two years ago and said he’d been that way as long as he can remember.
Explaining his “change of heart” in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Portman said his previous position, which was rooted in faith, changed after that “very personal experience.”
“That launched an interesting process, for me, which was kind of rethinking my position, talking to my pastor and other religious leaders, and going through a process of — at the end — changing my position on the issue,” Portman said.
Portman expressed a similar sentiment to reporters in his office, according to another report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
“It allowed me to think of this issue from a new perspective, and that’s of a dad who loves his son a lot and wants him to have the same opportunities that his brother and sister would have — to have a relationship like Jane and I have had for over 26 years,” Portman was quoted as saying.
Media outlets reported Portman said he later came to support marriage equality after he consulted former Vice President Dick Cheney, a marriage equality supporter whose daughter Mary Cheney is a lesbian.
Moreover, Portman reportedly said he believes part of the Defense of Marriage Act, which is currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, should be repealed. Section 3 of that law prohibits federal benefits from flowing to married same-sex couples.
Still, Portman reportedly emphasized he doesn’t want to force his views on others and religious institutions shouldn’t be forced to perform weddings or recognize marriages against their tenets. The Ohio Republican said he doesn’t know what the political fallout of his new position will be.
Portman’s new position marks a significant turnaround from his voting record as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2005. During his tenure in the lower chamber of Congress, Portman voted for DOMA and a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage in 2004.
While no other Republican members of the U.S. Senate support marriage equality, two sitting GOP House Republicans do: Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.). They both were among 131 prominent Republicans who signed a legal brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn California’s Proposition 8.
Portman isn’t the first Republican U.S. senator to back marriage equality, although he’s the only current member of the Republican Senate caucus to hold that position. Lincoln Chafee is considered the first because he supported legalizing same-sex marriage as a Republican U.S. senator before becoming an Independent and being elected governor of Rhode Island.
One question is where Portman now stands on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Asked about the issue last year by ThinkProgress, Portman expressed caution over the legislation and withheld immediate support.
“What I’m concerned about in Paycheck Fairness and other legislation like that is the fact that it will spawn a lot of litigation the way the legislation is written,” Portman said at the time. “So you don’t want it to be a boon to lawyers, you want it to actually help people. But no one should discriminate.”
But in June, Shari Hutchinson, a lesbian Cleveland, Ohio, resident, and member of the LGBT group Freedom to Work’s Speakers Bureau, told the Washington Blade she met privately with Portman’s staff and left feeling optimistic the Ohio Republican would support ENDA.
“I am an Ohio voter and I met with Sen. Portman’s staff last month to tell them how I faced anti-lesbian slurs at work in Cleveland and how I was repeatedly denied promotions even when the heterosexual candidate they selected instead of me had failed the qualifying exam for that promotion,” Hutchinson said. “Mr. Portman’s staff was very attentive, respectful and concerned to hear that anti-LGBT workplace harassment and discrimination still goes on in Ohio. I urged them to support ENDA and I am hopeful Mr. Portman might do the right thing.”
Portman was on the short list of possible vice-presidential contenders for 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Among LGBT advocates, he was seen as a lackluster candidate at the time because of his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment and reluctance to support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
Gregory Angelo, executive director of the National Log Cabin Republicans, said in a statement Portman’s new position demonstrates the growing support for marriage equality among the GOP.
“If there was any doubt that the conservative logjam on the issue of civil marriage for committed gay and lesbian couples has broken, Sen. Portman’s support for the freedom to marry has erased it,” Angelo said. “Sen. Portman’s evolution on this issue highlights how personal it is for Americans — whether they’re the junior senator from Ohio or your next-door neighbor, all Americans have a gay friend, colleague or family member, and understand them to be as deserving as their straight counterparts of the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that are the promise of the United States.”
Angelo added Portman’s support for same-sex marriage demonstrates a person can support same-sex marriage while holding religious views.
“We also applaud and respect the Senator’s decision as a person of faith who recognizes that there is a Christian case as well as a conservative case for marriage equality,” Angelo said. “Log Cabin Republicans welcomes Senator Portman’s support, and encourages his GOP colleagues in the Senate to join him on the right side of history.”
CORRECTION: An initial version of this article incorrectly reported that Portman is the first GOP U.S. senator to back marriage equality. It also mischaracterized a quote from Gregory Angelo. The Blade regrets the errors.
National
Baldwin, Pocan named on alleged Minn. shooter’s target lists
Suspected gunman was taken into custody Sunday

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, Democrats of Wisconsin, were named on lists of targets belonging to the man suspected of killing Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband and of injuring Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife.
The Hoffmans sustained multiple gunshot wounds and are reportedly in serious but stable condition.
Vance Boelter, the suspect, was apprehended on Sunday in connection with the shootings, which occurred on Saturday. He faces federal murder and stalking charges as well as state-level murder and attempted murder charges.
“Senator Baldwin was informed by law enforcement that she was included on the alleged shooter’s list of names,” Baldwin’s Communications Director Eli Rosen told Channel3000.com. “She is grateful for law enforcement’s swift action to keep the community safe and remains focused on the things that matter most here: honoring the legacy and life of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, praying for the other victims who are fighting for their lives, and condemning this abhorrent, senseless political violence.”
“I recently heard that my name was in one of the Minnesota shooting suspect’s notebooks and I’m appreciative that law enforcement apprehended the suspect,” Pocan said in a statement to Channel3000.com. “I will not back down in the face of terror, however, we as elected officials, must do better to lower the temperature. That said, my schedule remains unchanged.”
The news outlet reported on Monday that Baldwin’s name appeared on a list of 70 targets, while Pocan’s name was found on additional documents. The senator and congressman are both openly LGBTQ.
Democratic U.S. Reps. Greg Landsman (Ohio), Hillary Schotlen (Mich.), Veronica Escobar (Texas), and Joaquin Castro (Texas) also confirmed that their names appeared in notebooks recovered from Boelter’s vehicle.
Other Democrats who were reportedly targeted but whose offices have not yet provided confirmation as of Tuesday afternoon include LGBTQ congresswoman Angie Craig, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, and Attorney General Keith Ellison, all from Minnesota, along with U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski of Illinois, and U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri.
Walz called the shootings a “politically motivated assassination.”
Federal Government
Trump anti-trans EO used to deny health care to Democrats, unmarried vets
Veterans warn impacts will be felt disproportionately by women and LGBTQ people.

New rules would allow doctors at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to deny care to unmarried veterans and Democrats at hospitals across the country, pursuant to President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
According to the Guardian, which was first to report the hospital guidelines on Monday, they apply also to psychologists, dentists, and other providers — allowing for individual staff to refuse care for veterans on the basis of characteristics not covered under federal law, which proscribes discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, and sex.
Doctors can also be barred from working on VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, per documents reviewed by the Guardian. The agency confirmed changes to the rules came in response to Trump’s executive order.
Specifically, per the paper:
Until the recent changes, VA hospitals’ bylaws said that medical staff could not discriminate against patients “on the basis of race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status or disability in any employment matter”. Now, several of those items — including “national origin,” “politics” and “marital status” — have been removed from that list.
Similarly, the bylaw on “decisions regarding medical staff membership” no longer forbids VA hospitals from discriminating against candidates for staff positions based on national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, membership in a labor organization or “lawful political party affiliation.”
Experts warn that changes to the guidelines may lead to situations where, for example, doctors may question patients about whether they attended a rally for a political candidate or in support of gay rights, potentially denying care on those bases or because of the reasons given for seeking care, such as cases where the patient may report a rape or sexual assault.
Veterans warn impacts will be felt disproportionately by women and LGBTQ people.
National
New LGBTQ+ Archive to save scrubbed federal resources
Trump’s anti-DEI crusade seeks to erase entire communities

Generally, when someone says, “The internet is forever,” it is not a positive statement.
But for Shae Gardner, policy director at LGBT Tech, it has become a lifeline as she and her team have spent the last couple of months tracking down documents removed from government websites.
After a series of anti-DEI and LGBTQ executive orders, thousands of pages across the federal government have been removed or altered—with LGBTQ topics taking a big hit.
The LGBTQ+ Archive, launched by LGBT Tech last month, aims to restore lost resources about the LGBTQ community into a centralized hub. They have tracked down approximately 1,000 documents—all available as downloadable PDFs and sorted by agency—but know that more are missing. Users can submit missing documents or requests for missing documents.
Archived resources range from the 2023 Equity Action Plans mandated under Biden to HIV resource sheets.
Sid Gazula, LGBT Tech’s Google Policy Fellow said reviewing the documents scrubbed from the Department of Health and Human Services was striking. “You have these important documents related to people’s health. Health isn’t subjective,” he said, “The fact that an executive order could take away all this information was very eye-opening.”
For Gazula it made an already urgent project more urgent. “We, as a community, need access to these resources,” he said, “The archive presents a mechanism to get that access out there.”
The LGBT community has a long history of engaging in archival work, explained K.J. Rawson, professor at Northeastern University and director of the Digital Transgender Archive, in an email. He described archives as “key avenues for preserving and making accessible queer and trans history.”
Since mainstream archives often erase or misrepresent the LGBTQ community, Rawson pointed out that LGBTQ archives “fight against this trend and wrest control back into LGBTQ+ hands,” citing Cait McKinney’s phrase “information activism.”
Gardner feels appreciative of the history of LGBTQ preservation, which guided their work: “I want to make it abundantly clear that we are not the first or only organization doing this sort of preservation work.” She also mentions the Internet Archive, a non-profit library of web pages, which was invaluable during their research.
When the Blade asked about the LGBT Archive, Rawson described it as “crucial!” He elaborated that, “the overt erasure of LGBTQ+ people––but especially trans people––from federal websites has been a hostile move that’s one part of larger efforts to strip us of our humanity and our history.”
Beyond creating a record for the future, the archive is also useful in fighting for LGBTQ representation today. Gardner explained that numerous journalists and advocacy groups have already been using it. Gazula, who is a student, shared that some of their professors said it was an important resource for academic work.
To access it, users have to create an account. Gardner said this is not for marketing. Instead, they want to “put a stop gap between us and malicious actors and attacks on the site” and have a basic understanding of who is using the site. She assures users that the data is backed up on servers globally, but encourages folks to download freely from the archive.
“We decided that we wanted every document and resource on it to be a PDF that they would be able to save it themselves,” said Gardner, “This is not only meant to be very user-friendly, but is also meant to help with those resources being dispersed and being kept.”
“It is the history of our community,” Gardner continued, “we deserve to have continued access to it.”