Charles Cooper was a former top official in the Reagan Justice Department and was named “Republican lawyer of the year”, but he is more recently famous for defending California’s ban on gay marriage (Prop 8) in front of the Supreme Court. He lost.
Ironically, Cooper now finds himself planning his daughter’s gay marriage. Cooper learned of his daughter’s engagement before he argued the case, but the news was only made public recently in a new book about the movement to legalize gay marriage.
In the book, Cooper is quoted as saying that he came to admire the lesbian couple who challenged and eventually overturned Prop 8. Interestingly, that couple returned the favor. In a statement about Cooper’s defense of Prop 8 at the same time his daughter was planning on marrying a woman, they said
Some may find this contrast between public and private jarring, but in our opinion, loving an LGBT child unequivocally is the single most important thing any parent can do.
Cooper’s daughter lives in Massachusetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage.
Other prominent Republicans whose children are publicly gay include Dick Cheney and Rob Portman.
