Once-respected journalist/right wing golden boy Glenn Greenwald has come to the defense of his buddy Matt Gaetz after the anti-LGBTQ congressman voted against codifying same-sex marriage into federal law.
In a series of tweets, Greenwald, who is gay and married to a man, defended Gaetz’s vote against the Respect For Marriage Act, which would bar states from discriminating on the basis of “sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin” against couples who wish to get married.
Related: Tulsi Gabbard and Glenn Greenwald team up with website for right-wing extremists because of course
“In 2015, Florida banned adoptions by same-sex couples,” he tweeted yesterday. “The bill in the lower house to rescind that ban was sponsored by then-State Rep. @mattgaetz. It passed the Senate only because he convinced his father, a powerful GOP Senator, that the ban was wrong.”
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(For the record: This isn’t true. Gaetz’s father said he supported the bill because an appeals court had already declared the ban unconstitutional five years earlier, in 2010. His son, Matt, had nothing to do with his decision.)
In a follow-up tweet, Greenwald added: “Yesterday, Gaetz was one of the House Republicans to vote against codification of Obergefell (same-sex marriages). That NO vote wasn’t due to opposition to marriage equality but to his view that individual states have always regulated marriage, not the federal government.”
(For the record: Historically, the federal government has intervened to prevent states from engaging in certain behavior that interferes with, or is in conflict with, federal law. Article VI, Paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution, commonly referred to as the Supremacy Clause, establishes that the federal law takes precedence over state laws.)
Yesterday, Gaetz was one of the House Republicans to vote against codification of Obergefell (same-sex marriages). That NO vote wasn't due to opposition to marriage equality but to his view that individual states have always regulated marriage, not the federal government.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 20, 2022
This isn’t the first time Greenwald has gone to bat for Gaetz. Last year, he defended the anti-LGBTQ Florida lawmaker after he was accused of having sex with a high schooler, saying he was legally entitled to commit statutory rape with whatever “consenting” teenage girl who asks for it.
Related: Glenn Greenwald is being dragged for suggesting Matt Gaetz has a right to commit statutory rape
“If you don’t think it should be legal for 17 year-olds to have sex with anyone they want, go write to the governors and legislatures in 37 states & the District of Columbia which made it legal,” Greenwald tweeted in April 2021 shortly after Gaetz’s teen sex scandal first broke.
If you don’t think it should be legal for 17 year-olds to have sex with anyone they want, go write to the governors and legislatures in 37 states & the District of Columbia which made it legal. I’m not the one who passed those laws.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 12, 2021
What Greenwald conveniently left out of his tweet was that many of the states that allow 16 or 17 year olds to have sex require that both consenting partners be of similar ages, usually within a few years of one another. At the time Gaetz allegedly had sex with the 17-year-old, he was 38.
Here’s how folx are responding to Greenwald’s latest defense of Gaetz…
In summary, local leadership is great if the nepotism in play votes in the correct way.
— Pontifex (@bacchusplateau) July 20, 2022
So Glenn Greenwald is a Republican after all.
We were right.— Fran Adkins … for a Blue Senate 🇺🇸🇺🇦💙🌊🌎🐝 (@MarVistaWriter) July 20, 2022
The reason Obergefell v Hodges was necessary was because State governments were removing rights from American citizens. Reverting back to the States guarantees that Conservatives like you will seek to ban marriage equality again.
— Nicholas King (@TheKingSquare) July 20, 2022
You left something out, “journalist.” pic.twitter.com/dd8O6vtByA
— Thomas V. Bona (@Tvbona) July 20, 2022
And this pic.twitter.com/1z22cgPhnK
— Thomas V. Bona (@Tvbona) July 20, 2022
It’s not about federalism. https://t.co/t9umXqcy3z
— Charles Boyd (@MinorityOfOne75) July 21, 2022
— HoldThemAccountable 🇺🇸🇺🇦🌻 (@NoOrangeClown) July 20, 2022
But wait… Didn’t Gaetz, and @RepMTG and @laurenboebert say that the LGBTQ+ community, which gay men are a part of in case you didn’t realize, were groomers and pedophiles?
This contradicts his most recent stance.
— Chemical360 (@chemical360) July 20, 2022
How very brave of him to allow the predominantly republican lead (due to gerrymandering) states to rule on individual freedoms.
— Ed G (@edgphilly) July 20, 2022
You are increasingly looking to support people who are against your interest, like most republicans
— Benjamin Fisher (@monguetown) July 20, 2022
When you’ve got @ggreenwald shilling for you, it’s panic time.
— Rustic Canyon (@rustic_canyon) July 20, 2022
abfab
Glenn. You are now free to date Allen Dershowitz.
Mister P
States rights = A great way to deny people their civil rights.
Manray
At least Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill had the sense to throw Greenwald out of the intercept.
F you Glenn, you dumb queer.
johncp56
It take a criminal to vote like a criminal, hateful moron!! I have to curb my thoughts as I’ve been kicked out of Twitter for talking like an adult, lol
KetynPorta
When Biden was like Gaetz, you suport him, even now You suport Biden. Now what you need to learn Is the everything that you AND they are trying to make Is just ‘hoc est ridiculum, hoc est absurdum’ because if you making a reaction of what a falling empire Is taking.
DK
Who cares? It’s 2022 not 2002. When Republicans were like Lincoln, blacks supported them. When Republicans weren’t a bunch of lying, fascist, climate change denying lunatics, lots of people supported them. So what’s your point. Biden has grown and changed. In 2022, Gaetz and Rethuglikkklans are still a bunch of radical right extremist bigots trying to strip Americans of rights and freedoms.
Cam
Oh look, ANOTHER screename from Mario’s other screenames trying to deflect the topic.
Which is, Republicans are bigots and Glenn Greenwald enables them.
peacefulruffneck
“The Southern states wanted to assert their authority over the federal government so they could abolish federal laws they didn’t support, especially laws interfering with the South’s right to keep slaves and take them wherever they wished”. From the PBS documentary on Slavery and the Civil War.
“States rights” is the new (old) dog whistle for bigots and their enablers.
Kangol2
Glenn Greenwald lost his mind during the Don the Con years and remains lost. Gaetz and every other Republican (over 150) who voted against this House bill protecting same-sex marriage and interracial marriage committed an indefensible act. They are on the record yet again letting you know they don’t give a damn about LGBTQ people, equality, human and civil rights, or your freedoms. They ARE, however, ready, eager and willing to do the work to bring this country closer to something it has never been, a right-wing theocracy run by incompetent crackpots and corporations. Anyone who votes for them and with them is complicit.
Ken A.
It’s Gaetz, why is anyone surprised?
CNY1983
this isn’t going to go over well when matt moves on…..to federal prison.
oh well, room or one more honey.
DBMC
What happened to Glenn Greenwald? He’s just gone down a ridiculous hole. These people are AGAINST HIS RIGHTS and yet he props them up.
DK
Putin-puppet and Tucker Carlson bestie Glenn Greenwald supports child groomer and sex trafficker Matt Gaetz. What a shock.
DuMaurier
Obergefell does need to be codified in Federal law, of course. If the Supreme Court is willing to overthrow the constitutional right to abortion after fifty years, it’s ridiculous to assume they won’t do the same to a right established only seven years ago. And if Greenwald thinks it’s no big deal for the issue to go back to “the states” which might uphold the right or might rescind it, does he address how he’d feel if his legal marriage was suddenly up in the air?
One minor quibble; the article’s wording to the contrary, Greenwald is clearly not saying Gaetz has the right to commit “statutory rape”; his reference to the laws (whether or not they apply in Gaetz’s case) obviously means he’s saying Gaetz can enter into any sexual relationship if it IS legal (even if the rest of us think it’s yucky)
inbama
Greenwald grows uglier by the day.
Jim
Yeah yeah it’s states rights not slavery. err I mean gay marriage.
Cam
You can tell that media is in the tank for Republicans by the fact that “States Rights” was a rallying cry of the Confederacy. Yet media never calls out Republicans for continuing with this anti-American B.S.
MystiRivers
Sorry about your monkeypox.
Cam
@MystiRivers
Hi Mario, It’s fun to see that you still get so enraged by being exposed as a troll that you always reveal your obsession with me.
Oh, and by the way, if you’re going to keep pretending to be an LGBTQ person on this site, you may not want to mock a disease that seems to mostly be targeting that group.
As always your trolling is sad and weak.
theresistancevoter
Since when has Matt Gaetz been a champion of states’ rights? Sounds like a convenient place to hang his hat rather than a deeply held position (he appears not to have any of those). The other thing is that while the age of consent may be under 18 in some states, Florida is not one of them. And no, The Tool does not have the right to commit statutory rape on any teenage girl who asks for it. Teenagehood begins at 13, and as far as I know, it hasn’t been established that the teenager in question asked for it. Typical rapist defense, “she asked for it.”