Welcome to the cause: formerly pro-DOMA GOP lobbyist switches sides after she comes out as a lesbian

From the Advocate:

And by hiring Lehman, the organization is taking a page out of the playbook from Proposition 8 opponents, who hired polar opposites Ted Olson and David Boies to make a court win happen.

Lehman, who has a law degree from the Catholic University of America, joined Holland & Knight in 2005 after working for a who’s-who of GOP lawmakers — Gingrich, Tom “The Hammer” DeLay, Dennis Hastert, and Deborah Pryce among them. As The Hill noted in November, the Republicans’ takeover of the House in the 2010 midterm elections has only raised her lobbying profile in Washington.

When DOMA was being written in 1996, Lehman was chief counsel for the House Subcommittee on the Constitution for former chairman Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois. She oversaw the execution of all the subcommittee’s work, including the drafting and passage of DOMA. At the time, the right to marry for gay people existed nowhere on Earth, yet a court case in Hawaii was stoking both homophobia and fear that states could be forced to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

When the legislation was drafted and debated in committee, Lehman was not out of the closet (not out to even herself, she said). “I have to say I do recall vividly sitting there, and listening to Barney Frank, who was the ranking member of the subcommittee during the hearings. And Barney’s saying, I just don’t understand how if I’m in a loving, committed relationship with my partner, how it hurts somebody else’s marriage,” she said. “I remember thinking at the time, Yeah, I’m not sure about that, either.”