Now that an Ohio Republican has joined the cause of marriage equality, it’s a matter of time before the movement succeeds, despite the rest of the GOP. Image @ Kent.Edu

Back in March, a poll taken by the Ohio Dispatch revealed that a majority of Ohioans regretted the same-sex marriage ban enacted in 2004 and had since reversed course to support marriage equality. 54 percent said they want to repeal the ban and legalize same-sex marriage. Only 40 percent still supported the ban. It was a major swing from nearly a decade ago. In the same month, Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman also threw his support to marriage equality. Since then, a movement to repeal the ban has swept the state and that movement gained more Republican support on Monday.

Former GOP Ohio state representative and gubernatorial candidate, Jim Petro, who has a daughter who is gay, publicly endorsed marriage equality and called out the Ohio Republican Party for not supporting the repeal of the same-sex marriage ban.

According to Raw Story:

Petro told a crowd that he was “surprised that Republicans seem to be so hesitant to become engaged in this, because Republicans should be for freedom.”

Time and time again, Republicans have claimed to be the party that supports freedom and privacy, but over the last decade, the GOP has waged a savage campaign against both of those supposed conservative values by trying to legislate women’s bodies and by trying to criminalize same-sex relationships.

But Petro, who was appointed as the Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents to oversee the University System of Ohio by current Governor John Kasich in 2011, tried to make Republicans see reason.

“They should be for equality, and they should be supportive of the notion of commitment. The one thing that always surprised me a little bit is that we would say we don’t want to verify a commitment that you’re willing to make to a person who you care deeply for, who you love, and who you want to spend the rest of your life with, and you’re willing to make that commitment to care for one another in sickness and in health — that is a good thing. I don’t care what the genders are.”

Here’s the video:

A wave of support for marriage equality has overtaken Ohio in recent months, and the Supreme Court decision to strike down DOMA has further inspired efforts to finally repeal the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and replace it with an amendment to legalize it. Now that a Republican is joining the cause, it’s even more clear that it’s only a matter of time before the movement succeeds, despite what the rest of the GOP thinks. But more than likely, Republicans will refuse to budge on their positions and will probably excommunicate Petro as a Republican in name only. Because the reality is that Petro’s fellow Republicans have moved so far to the right that it would be impossible for any of them to support marriage equality without being challenged by conservative extremists in a primary. In short, Republicans will remain stubborn and voters will make them pay for it, and with any luck, marriage equality will become a reality at the same time.