When Scott Walker finally announces his intention to run for president next week, he’ll do so surrounded by people who disagree with him on an issue that many social conservatives are obsessed with right now: same-sex marriage. Walker’s two sons, Alex and Matt, are in favor of same-sex marriage and his wife Tonette is “torn,” she recently told the Washington Post. She went on to mention a married gay cousin “who I love dearly,” in what sounded like an attempt to distance herself from her husband’s opposition.
This disagreement created a rift in the family after the Supreme Court issued its ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges last month. The Wisconsin governor immediately called it a “grave mistake” and proposed a Constitutional amendment allowing states to decide marriage laws, which led his two sons to complain to their mother. “Our sons were disappointed,” she told the Post. Perhaps they were expecting to hear the version of their father who last October seemed uninterested in entering the culture wars over same-sex marriage. “To me, I’d rather be talking in the future now more about our jobs plan and our plan for the future of the state. I think that’s what matters to the kids. It’s not this issue,” he said at the time.
Walker’s sons are both college students — Matt at Marquette and Alex at the University of Wisconsin-Madison — and are currently taking time off to help their dad’s campaign. That might explain why a day after his “grave mistake” line, Walker toned down the rhetoric, telling a group of donors, “We should respect the opinions of others in America.”
