Three days after Christmas 2017, Rhyan Glezman got a text from his youngest brother, Chasten, saying he was engaged to his boyfriend of 2½ years — Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind.

“For Chasten, rejecting homosexuality is rejecting who he is. ‘We still live in a country where we have to second-guess whether it is okay for us to talk about our husbands and our wives,’ Chasten said in June to the Ingham County, Mich., Democrats. ‘When the stranger on the airplane tells you about his wife and his kids and then asks you, ‘So what about you?’ is it okay for me to say, ‘I live with my husband in Indiana?’ I still have to ask myself that every day.’”

Rhyan, an evangelical Christian pastor, texted back: “I love you and is the only reason I’m going to share this one question to you. Are you willing to surrender to God ‘the one who created you and I’ to whatever he says? I love you beyond what you will ever think or know. I think the world of you and Pete, you need to know that. Have a great day brother!!!”

Chasten’s reply: “Thank you. Love to you and the family.”

Less than a year later, Rhyan would be on Fox News, accusing Chasten of lying about his upbringing for political gain. That prompted accusations of bigotry and homophobia; Rhyan’s wife jumped in to vociferously defend her husband on Twitter and attack Chasten and Pete.

The Glezmans’ story, with all its rifts, love and sadness, became a private matter gone painfully public. Religious conservatives and gay rights activists across America took sides, and a once-close family was pulled further apart.

On the campaign trail, Buttigieg, an Episcopalian, cites Scripture often — in part, he has said, to build a bridge to the religious right. But the divide within his in-laws’ family highlights how difficult that may be. The split is resonating even more since Chasten, a 30-year-old former schoolteacher, has attracted his own enthusiastic following and begun holding solo campaign events separate from Buttigieg.

“I think in some ways he’s modeling what kind of a first spouse he might be,” Buttigieg said on a recent bus tour through Iowa, of Chasten’s visits to schools and LGBTQ centers. “I talk about my story, [but] I think his story is even more of somebody whose life has really been shaped by the political decisions of others.” Read more via Washington Post