Blog 5

Andy Borowitz is a blogger on the New Yorker responsible for the Borowitz Report, a special segment that focuses on social—and particularly political—satire. His blogs have a generally liberal tendency, although he does criticize Democrats as well. He draws caricatures of politicians’ reasoning to emphasize the ridiculousness of certain policies. In emulation of his style, which is snarky and irreverent, I’m commenting on the recent reversal of Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) on gay marriage. (I’m using slightly less sarcasm—wit, to some people—only because it sometimes becomes inappropriate for a high school journalism class.)

Republican Senator Rob Portman’s sudden reversal on gay marriage (from support of the Defense of Marriage Act to deciding that equality should exist for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation—and his specific epiphany that homosexual people did not choose their orientation) is a baby step in the right direction, although an underwhelming and accidental one. In his op-ed, in which he acknowledges much of the same arguments (14^th Amendment rights, common-sense social equality rhetoric, etc.) that others championing gay rights have long put forth, he notably makes no move to repudiate his past logic, which upheld the Defense of Marriage Act on the grounds that homosexuality was unnatural.

His son’s coming out seems to be not only a catalyst for his moving toward fundamental equality in policy but also the only real argument supporting his newfound position. He talks extensively about wanting his middle son to have all the same opportunities as his two other children. What about the fundamental right of every other person in the LGBTQ community to have the same rights as everyone else? Hypocrisy doesn’t seem to be absent from his reversal of position. Regardless, he does push LGBTQ rights forward, although only by happenstance.

Katherine Fang

Staff writer (Editor-in-chief)