Josh Barro: 'Will Portman and the duty to come out'

Bloomberg writer (and all-around smart guy) writes today about Sen. Rob Portman's reversal on marriage equality based in great part due to his son's coming out.

Barro recounts how having an older family member ("Uncle Frankie") "come out," for better or worse, made the prospect easier for Barro.

And for those reasons, Barro feels that Will Portman's "coming out" was not only important for himself, but for all the other 'Will Portmans' out there who need to see the domino effect: every time a gay or lesbian person demands acceptance, they make it easier for others to do the same.

Writes Barro:

"Coming out may have been more daunting for Will Portman because his father was a Republican officeholder with an anti-gay voting record; or maybe he had good reasons to expect his dad to react in exactly the way he did. But while his father’s position may have made coming out harder, it also made it all the more obligatory, because of the possibility it would lead to the outcome that we saw last week. He was given an unusual opportunity to use his coming out to materially change the prospects for gay rights and gay acceptance in America, and he took it.

"And that will make it easier for teenagers not operating from a position of privilege to be themselves without hiding. There are a lot of teenagers for whom, unlike Will Portman or me, coming out entails risk of familial rejection, homelessness and violence. There is a reason organizations such as the Ali Forney Center, which provides housing and support to homeless LGBT youth in New York City, need to exist. Making public policy less anti-gay will help these youth but arguably more importantly, demands for social acceptance of gays and lesbians at the elite level trickle down into mass attitudes and make it less likely that families will reject their gay children in the first place."

Read Josh's entire essay at Bloomberg.com