A House Republican voted against codifying same-sex marriage as the law of the land prior to hypocritically attending his gay son’s wedding.
The 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling is currently the only thing standing in the way of states criminalizing same-sex marriage, which several states had already done prior to the decision. Now that the high court has a 6-3 conservative majority that includes several right-wing extremists, that ruling could very well be overturned.
To counteract this possibility, made even more likely by the fact that the court recently reversed Roe v. Wade, Democrats in Congress are pushing legislation to codify same-sex marriage.
But Republicans, of course, oppose the legislation. Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) also opposes it and he voted against it despite his own son being gay. His son recently married another man. That means Thompson voted against his own son’s legal right to get married.
Thompson claims he voted against the bill because it was supposedly a “political” trick by Democrats.
“It was the right vote because it was a political bill that was put on the floor by the Democrats for the purposes of … getting political leverage, inappropriately, for this next election,” Thompson said. “No one’s looking to step in the way of people choosing who they’re going to marry. It was ridiculous.”
Except Justice Clarence Thomas already used the reversal of Roe v. Wade to call for reversing rulings such as Obergefell, and Republicans in several states have launched an all-out assault on LGBTQ rights. A reversal of Obergefell is certainly possible, especially with bigots controlling the majority, and several red states would absolutely ban same-sex marriage again if given the chance. And just as Republicans are now pushing a national abortion ban, they could very well push a national same-sex marriage ban as well. Thompson’s claim that no one is going to “step in the way” of same-sex couples trying to get married is either willful ignorance or a deliberate lie.
Thompson threw a temper tantrum over being labeled a hypocrite since he not only attended his son’s gay wedding, but he also even delivered a loving toast. He referred to the coverage as “pretty disrespectful, actually, in terms of the kind of invasion of his privacy.”
The irony is that same-sex marriage bans and discriminatory anti-gay laws are even more of an invasion of privacy. Why not make sure his son’s privacy and rights are protected by the law?
“From the time they’re born, we have all kinds of hopes and aspirations for them,” Thompson said of his son. “One of them is that they find that person that they want to grow old with and spend the rest of their life.”
The problem is that Thompson himself is a member of a party that is actively working to make sure gay people like his son never get that chance. His vote against the legislation shows where his loyalty truly lies.
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