Arkansas governor’s son on why he asked his father to veto anti-gay bill
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson threw his son in the spotlight Wednesday morning when he announced his son had signed a petition urging him to veto a controversial bill that would have allowed businesses to deny services to gay and lesbian customers.
“My son Seth signed the petition asking me to veto the bill,” the governor said during a televised news conference.
The younger Hutchison seems to have more progressive politics than his father, who is a Republican. Seth Hutchinson, 31, is a union organizer in Austin for the Texas State Employees Union.
“I love and respect my father very much, but sometimes we have political disagreements, just as many families do,” Hutchinson wrote on in a note posted to his Facebook page Wednesday afternoon.
The younger Hutchinson is also a self-described political outcast in the family.
Hutchinson told the New York Times he started disagreeing with his father’s politics around the age of 15, around the same time he started working as a dishwasher. He also said the arrest of a high school art teacher charged with loitering in the part made him more interested in gay rights.
“We must build a mass movement of Americans fighting for economic, environmental, and social justice if we want to see real progress,” Hutchinson went on to write on his Facebook page.
Hutchinson is giving his dad all the credit.
“I did not sway my dad,” Hutchinson told The Times. “I think my dad is rethinking this because of the pressure that’s coming at him from all sides.”