"CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME"

Now that he knows homosexuality has come to his own family, Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) decides to support gay marriage.  Before, he didn't have the moral strength to imagine that gay marriage might be good for other people.

I think Adam Smith wrote that our sympathy for others is often in rough proportion to how close they are to us.

UPDATE: I found this Smith quote in The Theory of the Moral Sentiments:

We expect less sympathy from a common acquaintance than from a friend: we cannot open to the former all those little circumstances which we can unfold to the latter: we assume, therefore, more tranquillity before him, and endeavour to fix our thoughts upon those general outlines of our situation which he is willing to consider. We expect still less sympathy from an assembly of strangers, and we assume, therefore, still more tranquillity before them, and always endeavour to bring down our passion to that pitch, which the particular company we are in may be expected to go along with.