Because the Supreme Court has officially gone off the rails, Democrats in Congress have written legislation that would codify the right to same sex marriage into law—just in case SCOTUS decides to overrule that right as well, as Justice Clarence Thomas hinted they might. Most Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against the Respect for Marriage bill, including Pennsylvania representative Glenn Thompson. However, I’m assuming most of Thompson’s GOP colleagues didn’t make a touching father-of-the-groom speech at their gay son’s gay wedding just three days later, as he did.
Thompson’s son confirmed to NBC News that his dad did attend his wedding to the “love of my life,” on July 22. Maddison Stone, Thompson’s press secretary, told the outlet, “Congressman and Mrs. Thompson were thrilled to attend and celebrate their son’s marriage on Friday night as he began this new chapter in his life.”
And it actually does seem that the Thompsons were legitimately thrilled, based on audio obtained by BuzzFeed News of the wedding toast the congressman gave. Representative Thompson said parents love it when their children “find their one true love, especially when they become a part of our families then. That’s what we’re rooting for.” Thompson said his son had done a “great job” of adding to the family and finished his speech, “So we’re just blessed, and we just want to say thank you to everyone here as part of the celebration.”
A reasonable person might find Glenn Thompson’s open-hearted support of his son’s same-sex marriage a bit at odds with his decision not to protect that marriage from potentially being invalidated in the future. Stone explained the apparent hypocrisy in an email to Centre Daily thus: “This bill was nothing more than an election-year messaging stunt for Democrats in Congress who have failed to address historic inflation and out of control prices at gas pumps and grocery stores.”
Okay, then.
