GOP Lawmaker Attends Gay Son’s Wedding Days After Opposing Same-Sex Marriage Bill – Yahoo Eurosport UK
Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) celebrated his gay son’s wedding less than a week after he voted against a bill that would protect his son’s right to have one.
Thompson’s son confirmed to NBC News on Monday that he “married the love of [his] life” on Friday and that his “father was there.”
A spokesperson for the congressman told NBC in a statement that he and his wife were “thrilled to attend and celebrate their son’s marriage” and were “very happy” to welcome their new son-in-law to the family.
House lawmakers on Tuesday passed a bill, the Respect for Marriage Act, to federally protect same-sex marriages amid fears that such rights may be next in the firing line after the conservative-majority Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had protected abortion rights.
All Democrats and a significant number of Republicans ― 47 of 211 House GOP members ― voted in favor of the bill. It’s now in the hands of the Senate, where its fate is uncertain.
After voting against the legislation, Thompson’s spokesperson told the Centre Daily Times in Pennsylvania that the 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.”
The bill’s bipartisan support in the House marked the most pro-LGBTQ vote in congressional history. If signed into law, it would formally repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law against same-sex marriage that was overturned in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling by the Supreme Court.
In his dissent in the ruling last month that overturned Roe v. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas mentioned the Obergefell ruling as one that stood to fall by the same reasoning the conservatives had employed to end abortion rights.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.