Republican senator reverses his opposition to gay marriage after his 21-year-old son comes out

Daily Mail

Katie Davies

A respected Republican senator has announced he is reversing his stance against gay marriage after his 21-year-old son came out to him and his wife.

Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican considered as a running mate by the Romney campaign, said the discovery that his son Will, 21, was gay had given him a 'new perspective' and understanding of why equal opportunities matter.

Will, a junior at Yale University, came out to his politician father and mother, Jane, two years ago, The Plain Dealer reports.

Portman, who backed the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, says since his son's announcement he has been reconsidering his views on homosexuality and same-sex marriage.

He said he had spent some time speaking to his church in Cincinnati and former Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter is gay.

Today he wanted to officially and publicly reverse his political position on the issue.

'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 told the local paper.

'The overriding message of love and compassion that I take from the Bible, and certainly the Golden Rule, and the fact that I believe we are all created by our maker, that has all influenced me in terms of my change on this issue.'

He added that he believed opening marriage up to homosexual couples 'strengthens the institution' and he realized his son's sexuality 'wasn't a choice'.

He said his son had not exerted any influence on him politically but supported his new position and 'encouraged' him.

Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...

Politico

By MANU RAJU and DAVID ROGERS

Days before the March 1 deadline, Senate Republicans are circulating a draft bill that would cancel $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts and instead turn over authority to...Barack Obama to achieve the same level of savings under a plan to be filed by March 8.

The five- page document, which has the tacit support of Senate GOP leaders, represents a remarkable shift for the party. Having railed against Senate Democrats for not passing a budget, Republicans are now proposing that Congress surrender an important piece of its Constitutional “power of the purse” for the last seven months of this fiscal year.

Read this story at politico.com...

Nearly two-thirds of them voted to give weapons to the Egyptian government.

National Review

I’m done grumbling about how [Alleged] President Obama is empowering America’s enemies. After all, it is not just Obama. When it comes to abetting the Muslim Brotherhood, Republicans are right there with him.

Not all of them, of course. This week, for example, Senator Rand Paul proposed an amendment that would have prohibited our government from transferring F-16 aircraft and Abrams tanks to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood–dominated government. This lunatic plan is not just an Obama initiative. It is also a GOP brainstorm — of a piece with 2011’s Libya debacle, in which Republican leaders cheered as Obama, upon consulting with the Arab League, ignored Congress and levied war on behalf of the very jihadists who, quite predictably, have since raided Qaddafi’s arsenal, besieged northern Africa, and massacred Americans in Benghazi.

A few weeks back, the John McCain & Lindsey Graham roadshow made its way to Brotherhood Central in Cairo, with newcomer Kelly Ayotte in tow. Senator Ayotte appears to have filled the void created by Joe Lieberman’s retirement — after all, when you have Republicans, who needs another Democrat? The former trio is best remembered for its Tripoli triumph of late 2009, when the three kicked back in the Qaddafi compound and toasted our newly cozy relations with the dictator. The bipartisan solons then winged their way home in time to second the Obama State Department’s increase in funding for the Libyan dictator’s regime. After all, they reasoned, Qaddafi was our hedge against Libya’s jihadists. As is their wont, though, the solons soon dazzled us with a 180, suddenly deciding that what we really needed to do was back Libya’s jihadists in their war against Qaddafi. The rest, as they say in Mali, is history.

So the GOP brain trust now brings this Midas touch to Egypt, rallying behind Obama’s cozy relations with the new “Islamic democracy.” That would be the Brotherhood’s rapidly unraveling sharia basket case, into which our own bankrupt government has so far sunk nearly 3 billion U.S.-taxpayer dollars, with more billions soon to come through U.S.-backed IMF loans and, yes, sophisticated U.S. weaponry. Any moment now, as it was in turbulent Libya, the ground in Egypt is certain to shift, or crater. When it does, who knows whose side the senators will have us on . . . and who knows what American enemies may be wielding that U.S. weaponry?

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GOP lawmakers float immigration reform plan

The Washington Times

By Stephen Dinan

Saying they want to get the conversation on immigration reform started, top Senate Republicans on Tuesday introduced a version of the so-called “Dream Act” to grant young illegal immigrants legal status in the US, though not giving them a special path to citizenship.

GOP Sens. Jon Kyl and Kay Bailey Hutchison said they have introduced a bill that would reward those who take college classes or join the military.

“We have got to get this ball rolling,” said Mr. Kyl, an Arizona Republican who is retiring this year. “We have to have a discussion that is sensible, that is calm.”

Read this story at washingtontimes.com ...