Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz.., opposes same-sex marriage, but according to his gay son, that has absolutely nothing to do with his father’s “views on a person’s relationship,” reports Politico.
Salmon’s son, also named Matt, came to his dad’s defense in an interview with the Washington Blade Tuesday.
“He doesn’t see it as not allowing his son to be with the person he loves because he knows that regardless of where marriage is, I’m going to be with the person that I love,” Salmon’s son said.
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“Whether I can legally marry in Arizona or not, it’s not going to change that fact and my father knows that and he accepts my desire to be with the man that I love. As far as it goes with marriage for him, it’s a matter of what marriage means to him. To him, marriage is defined as between a man and a woman. It has nothing to do with the way he views a person’s relationship, and that’s the thing that I think is hard for people to understand.”
Rep. Salmon’s views were no surprise to his son, who said they were nothing he “didn’t already know.”
Another thing he knows for sure -- his father loves and respects him.
“People seem to be trying so hard to analyze where it’s coming from, but really he was quite straight-forward,” the son said, describing his father as “incredibly tolerant.”
“My father loves me very much and he supports me and he respects me. He’s very much there for me as one of my closest friends. I think that was obvious in everything that he had to say.”
In a recent TV interview, Rep. Salmon said that he had yet to evolve on the issue of same-sex marriage.
“I’m just not there as far as believing in my heart that we should change 2,000 years of social policy in favor of a redefinition of the family,” the congressman said.
“I’m not there.”
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