Empathy – Yea. Sympathy – Nay.

If you know me well, you know that I’m a political junkie, well was.  For a good while, my TV was fixed on MSNBC, all day, every day.  I knew politicians as well as tabloid readers know their celebrities, as well as kids know their video games.  But lately I am so passed politics.  I still love me some Obama.  I mean look at that swag – the walk, the salt and pepper hair, the way he says Pakistan.  How could anyone not be in awe of him?  Oh yeah, he managed to get some good work done, with his hands tied behind his back.  (Look it up yourself – this is not what this post is about.)  And I wish the government would spend more money on infrastructure and less on wars, but that is neither here nor there.

But the point I’m making is that I’ve known who Rob Portman is for a while, and boy was I wishing he would be Romney’s running mate.  Can you imagine two vanilla guys trying to oust Obama and Biden?  Again, this post is not about that.  The reason why I brought up Rob Portman’s name is because finally there was some colorful news about him.  Did I mention that this man is B-O-R-I-N-G?

So in March of this year, Sen. Rob Portman (R) announced that he supports same-sex marriage.  It is not unusual for a politician to support same-sex marriage lately.  It is not even unusual for a Republican politician.  But it is a bit unusual for a CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN politician to support same-sex marriage.  And it is even more unusual for a conservative Republican politician who was a co-sponsor of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to do so.

I didn’t have to wonder long why this politician had evolved.  And really I don't even have anything against anyone evolving their views regarding same-sex marriage and same-sex relationships.  After all, too many of us grew up in churches and communities that condemn such.  And it is usually after we are mature enough to think rationally for ourselves, can we encounter this evolution.

But get this.  Sen. Portman found out two years ago that he youngest son was….wait for it….wait for it…..gay.  His baby was gay.  How was that possible?  He was a good father.  He was a good Christian man.  His other son and daughter were normal.  How could that be?  He kept that from us for two years, and after getting used to the idea of having a gay son, he realized that he would be responsible for preventing his baby from living as happy a life as his other two children.  Because of Daddy Dearest, Little Willie (oh I don’t know if that’s what he has…I just know that his son’s name is William) might not be able to marry and live happily ever after with the person that he loves.  And how can Daddy be happy if Little Willie is not?  Since Daddy had the power to do something about it, Daddy did.  Daddy made it known that it is now okay for same-sex couples to marry.  After all, the Supreme Court was about to overturn DOMA, and Daddy was willing to sacrifice his other conservation Republican friends to make Little Willie happy.

And did you know that many people called Sen. Rob Portman brave?  Brave my ass.  Brave he would not be for announcing this two years ago when William sent a letter to him and his wife, although they lived in the same country.  Brave would have been Sen. Rob Portman (R) NOT supporting DOMA in 1996 while thinking that all his children would be heterosexual.  Brave would have been Sen. Rob Portman announcing to Congress and the entire world that everyone should be able to love and marry who they want.  And I can just hear some of you, “What’s next?  Marrying children.  Marrying your immediate family.”  But I’m just here to suggest to you that people who are attracted to members of their own sex are not automatically pedophiles or crazy.  And I don’t want to be hypocritical and assume that people who are in love with their parents/siblings are crazy, but picturing myself with my father gives me the heebie-jeebies, and that, my friend, is downright CRAZY.

Bill Maher has posed this question a few times to which no one is brave enough to give an honest response.  Why have gay rights evolved so quickly (and I know it might not have seemed fast enough for gay people) while civil rights have remained stagnant after so many years.  There is one answer to that question.  People like Rob Portman and Dick Cheney, who also supported gay marriage back in 2004, have openly gay children.  Newt Gingrich has a gay sister, and in 2012, while trying to become the 45^th President, was pretending that same-sex relationship was an issue for him.  Come on, Newt.  You have no principles.  You have left every wife for the next, the first while she had cancer and who was also your Geometry teacher.  Your last wife is the same age as your daughters, who you were having an affair with, while trying to impeach Bill Clinton.  So let’s just keep this among people who really believe the shit that they spiel.

But as you can guess, none of these Republican politicians have black family members.  They probably don’t have any real black friends.  They certainly don’t have any poor friends.  And that is the main reason why they cannot relate.  They have no concern for the disenfranchised because they know no one like that.  Not in their family.  Not in their neighborhood.  Not in their circle.  Not in their church.

And unfortunately they cannot sympathize with people to whom they cannot relate.  As soon as one of these politician’s children gets married to someone black, and there is a half black grandbaby involved, only then (after a while of course) will they be able to see black people as that…people.  According to presidential loser Gingrich’s take on homosexuality, “It is in every family.  It is in every community.”  Until black people are in every family, every community, every church, every school, everywhere, they will never be given the same inalienable rights, because perspectively speaking if you can’t see, it doesn’t exist.