No, not THAT kind of gay conversion. The writer, Hilary Rosen, means that of politicians converting from opposing LGBT equality to supporting it. Here's an excerpt from her essay in The Huffington Post:
...if those politicians convert because it is the evening of a governor making a decision on a Senate appointment (one that was held up, in part, because Gillibrand was not in favor of same sex marriage, until she said she would change her view), or if it is because a southern politician with a good heart has moved to New York and is considering a run for the Senate in a new day, I'll take the conversions.
Let's not kid ourselves, as those who attack Harold Ford are doing. Senator Gillibrand is a convert. A welcome and lovely convert, but a convert, who converted when it became politically important to do so. And now she is working hard to overturn Don't Ask Don't Tell in the Senate. I'll take it, and I like her and her energy. Harold Ford is a convert, too. I've had many conversations with him about these issues over the many years that I have known and liked him. For Ford, who has been out of office, his evolution has taken place more privately, as he watched the debates on civil unions vs. marriage, as he got married and moved to New York, and socialized with a more diverse crowd, and saw the consequences of prejudice more directly than in his old conservative Memphis district. I'll take that now, too.
It seems divisive and pointless to attack people for their past positions when they want to be with us now. We need all the friends we can get and the only way we will get them is to grow them -- to celebrate their evolution.
Click here to read the rest of the essay.
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