These Former Enemies Of Gay Rights Did Complete 180s
The GOP senator made quite a turnaround, and he did it publicly just a couple of weeks before the Supreme Court will hear two huge gay marriage cases. Portman previously voted for the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act and to ban gays from adopting kids, MSNBC has reported.
While Portman's 180-degree turnaround is certainly more dramatic than President Obama's "evolution" on gay marriage (which some view as purely political), other high-profile people have had equally shocking changes of heart on the marriage issue.
One of the more surprising people who changed his mind is Dave Blankenhorn, a "traditional marriage advocate" who founded the Institute For American Values.
Blankenhorn was a star witness for the anti-gay marriage camp in the case involving California gay marriage ban Proposition 8. But now he's enlisting gay rights groups to help him promote the idea that everybody should get married.
Another gay marriage convert is former Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich, who called gay marriage a "fundamental violation of our civilization" in early 2012.
Gingrich got flak over the years for saying gays were threatening the institution of marriage when he had been a philanderer who divorced a wife who had cancer.
In December 2012, Gingrich told HuffPost's Sam Stein that he would have "done better" against Obama and that Republicans could no longer deny the inevitability of gay marriage.
(Newt's lesbian half-sister, Candace, wrote that she thought her brother had truly "evolved" on the marriage issue after spending time with her and her partner.)
Another Georgia lawmaker, former Congressman Bob Barr, actually wrote the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act, which forbids the federal government from representing same-sex marriages.
In 2009, he wrote an op-ed called "No Defending the Defense of Marriage Act." After arguments this week, the Supreme Court could could finally do away with the 1996 law.