"Personally-impacted' conscience

      I have tried to limit the political blogs that I do because it really isn't my purpose in doing this blog.  I try to connect people in our community with what is happening in our community.  But today I divert from that because of something that happened last week in the political world.
      Last week Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio came out in favor of allowing gay marriage because two years ago he found out his son was gay.   Rob Portman, as a congressman, was a co-sponsor of the Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage as only between a man and a woman.  Dick Chaney only came out for gay marriage because he has a gay daughter.
       Similarly when Ronald Reagan was President he proposed cutting NIH funding by 23%, which included research in the newly developing work with Alzheimers disease.  When he developed Alzheimers his wife, Nancy Reagan, became an advocate for NIH funding for Alzheimers disease. This reminded me of how conservatives seem to only have the ability to be progressive in social thought when they have a personal experience.  Empathy for needs of people who are not in your family or social world seems to be something that is foreign to them.  They appear to me to have a "personally-impacted" conscience instead of a social conscience.