Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E.
Pfeifer said on Thursday that his daughter is gay and that he worries
about the legal rights of her family.
“I have the same family situation as
[former Ohio Attorney General Jim] Petro and [Senator] Rob Portman,”
Pfeifer told The
Columbus Dispatch. “We have a daughter who has had a
partner for a long time. We have two children we consider
grandchildren, a girl, 9, and a boy, 5.”
“We're just delighted to have these
little kids as grandchildren but, legally, they are not and that's a
problem.”
Pfeifer is the third prominent Ohio
Republican, after Petro and Portman, to disclose in the past two
years that they have a gay son or daughter.
(Related: Gay
marriage foe NOM vows to target Sen. Rob Portman for defeat in 2016.)
The recent ruling by the
Cincinnati-based Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding bans on
same-sex marriage in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee prompted
Pfeifer to come forward.
Pfeifer called the dissenting opinion
by Judge Martha Daughtrey “right.”
“It's really about the children,”
he said. “These kids are young, but as kids get to be teenagers,
they are going to figure out the legalities of these relationships,
and for some kids, that could be a real problem.”
Pfeifer acknowledged the “practical
problems” the state's ban presents for families and the courts.