The brother-in-law of presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is pushing back at the narrative that the candidate’s husband, Chasten, was shunned by his family after coming out as gay and struggled through poverty.
Rhyan Glezman, one of Chasten’s two brothers, was quoted in a Washington Poststory saying he loved his brother, but, ‘I just don’t support the gay lifestyle.’ His other brother Dustin said the family strain continues, saying, ‘We never got over it.’
Glezman, a 34-year-old pastor from Clio, Michigan, is taking issue with how his family narrative is being cast, and indicated he is not likely to vote to make his brother first spouse.
‘Do I love him? Absolutely. He is my brother.’ Glezman said of Chasten, 29.
‘You can’t change that. Just because we have a disagreement doesn’t change that,’ he told the Washington Examiner, who caught up with him in his small Michigan town as Buttigieg continues to remain in an upper tier of Democratic candidates.
Glezman also responded to a claim, depicted in the Post story, that Chasten lived economic deprivation.
The Post reported he ‘has been a homeless community college student and a Starbucks barista,’ recounting his time living on couches after coming out as gay to his family.
He grew up in a working class family, but for a time broke ties, going to Germany on an exchange program as a student.
‘The further away I could get, the safer I felt, he told the paper, which recounts Chasten’s telling that one of his siblings said ‘no brother of mine …’ when he broke the news to his family that he was gay.
There had been earlier cultural clashes in the home. ‘I would be inside reading Harry Potter or singing Celine Dion at the top of my lungs while my mom and I were dusting the cabinets,’ recalled Chasten. His brothers more interested in hunting and outdoor activities.
He moved out, living on friends’ couches and occasionally sleeping in his car in a parking lot of a community college.
‘He was struggling for a time. But there was nothing on the family end that said he had to leave,’ said Glezman.
‘The story makes it look as if he came from nothing, a poor family,’ complained Glezman. ‘Chasten had everything, from cellphones paid for, car insurance paid for.’
His brother accused him of playing the ‘victim card.’
He also vented that Christians were being shunned in the political conversation. ‘I believe for me, as a Christian, we’re the people being shunned, people being silenced, and a lot of the liberal side of things are becoming the bigots to Christianity and faith,’ he said. ‘They are becoming the intolerant side.’
He blasted what he considers the tailoring of a story to fit the Buttigieg campaign.
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