Jim Petro, the former Ohio attorney general, appeared at an event with the group FreedomOhio, which is spearheading an effort to overturn Ohio’s same-sex marriage ban.
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This post originally appeared at ThinkProgress.
By Scott Keyes
The former Ohio attorney general, a Republican who oversaw the state’s enactment of a constitutional ban prohibiting same-sex marriage or civil unions, announced his support for marriage equality at a press conference Monday.
According to the Columbus Dispatch, Jim Petro, who served as attorney general from 2003 to 2007, appeared at an event with the group FreedomOhio, which is spearheading an effort to overturn Ohio’s same-sex marriage ban.
Petro is the second high-profile Republican official in Ohio to endorse marriage equality this year; Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) announced his support in March. Like Portman, Petro cited his children’s orientation as the primary reason he reconsidered his earlier opposition to equality. Petro has a daughter who married her partner last year in Massachusetts.
Petro and Portman’s support for marriage equality could prove influential as FreedomOhio attempts to put the matter before voters in the 2014 general election. The group must first gather 385,245 signatures from Ohio voters to get on the ballot.
Photo: AP/FIle
“Like Portman, Petro cited his children’s orientation as the primary reason he reconsidered his earlier opposition to equality. ”
I support marriage equality because it’s the right thing. It kind of makes you wonder about a person’s morality when their political decisions are motivated solely or primarily by personal impact.
Yeah, I read this and all I see is a conservative guy deciding he’ll ‘support’ the rather conservative institution of marriage for same-sex couples AFTER the Supreme Court’s basically ruled that same-sex marriage should be legal, AFTER it’s become clear most American support it, and AFTER he finally came to terms with the fact that (omg) his daughter is a lesbian.
How forward-thinking of him.