Rep. Glenn Thompson is a man of multitudes, or something.
GOP Rep. Glenn Thompson voted against same-sex marriage, then attended his son’s same-sex wedding
Last week, the House advanced a measure to protect same-sex marriage from potentially being reversed by the Supreme Court. Although some Republicans supported the measure, to nobody’s surprise, most of them voted against it. What’s caught the internet’s attention, however, is one Republican who attended his gay son’s wedding mere days after rejecting same-sex marriage protection.
Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) is everything you’d expect from a GOP lawmaker. In 2020, he supported the Senate’s Born Alive bill, which sought to criminalize abortion providers (sound familiar?). He received an A+ “pro-life” rating in 2021, and he’s tweeted some anti-abortion nonsense this month, too.
Looking at Thompson’s willingness to erode bodily agency by targeting abortion, his vote against protecting same-sex marriage is entirely on brand. But then on Thursday, Gawker reported that Thompson’s vote came three days ahead of his son’s wedding to a man.
In its original reporting, Gawker wasn’t even sure if Thompson planned to attend the wedding. On Monday, though, NBC News reported that Thompson’s own son confirmed that he “married the love of his life” over the weekend and his “father was there.”
In addition, Thompson’s press secretary, Maddison Stone, 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.” Stone went on to add that the Thompsons “very happy” to welcome their new son-in-law “into their family,” per NBC News.
Now, the parent of an LGBTQ+ person being homophobic isn’t unheard of. In 2021, in The Trevor Project’s national survey of nearly 35,000 LGBTQ youth ages 13-24, only 1 in 3 LGBTQ+ youth said their home was LGBTQ+-affirming. It’s just that there are new layers to the whole thing when said parent is a politician with the power to actually harm LGBTQ+ communities at a large scale — and does so — and then turns around and tries to play it off like nothing.
