90-year-old former US Senator to marry a man

90-year-old former US Senator Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania has announced that he is going to marry his long-time significant other, 40-year-old Matthew Charlton.

Congratulations to both.

I like what he said here:

  • “I had seen firsthand - working and walking with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - that when the time was right, major change for civil rights came to pass in a single creative decade. It is right to expand our conception of marriage to include all Americans who love each other.”*

I ain’t sayin’ he’s a gold excavator, but he ain’t messin’ with no broke former senator.

Da fuck is that supposed to mean? :dubious:

He’s implying, due solely to the age difference, that the younger man, MUST be a gold digger. Not only is he marrying a much older man, BUT that man has been financially successful.

Of course they’ve already been together for 15 yrs, so, yknow, it’s the LOOOONG con! No doubt he’s after all that big pension money!

15 yrs together? I’m going to say it’s a love match, but the world is full of skeptics, of course!

So they hooked up when they were 25 and 75 respectively. I wish them well but still find that creepy (as I would for any gender pairing with that age difference).

It’s a silly parody of the lyrics to the song “Gold Digger”.

I don’t know Wofford and Charlton and I don’t judge people I don’t know (and I caution myself against judging people I do know) but I am always happy to make fun of social convention. Here at the good ol’ SDMB if someone were to post a news item about a 40 year old woman marrying a 90 year old man, if someone were to attempt to assert that it was twue wuvvvv that person would be laughed off the boards.

I actually like that we’re inclined to give Wofford and Charlton the benefit of the doubt but the truth is it’s because we want to champion happy gay marriage stories. I’d think it wonderful if we adopted a live and let live attitude in all cases but, really, I’m inclinced to believe there’d be no warm fuzzies to share if we were reading about a 40 year old woman marrying a 90 year old man.

Not quite “hooked up at 25 and 75”: they met at those ages, but became friends before becoming lovers.

I loved this bit from the NYT article, about his now-deceased wife:

He calls himself a romantic and sounds like it’s true in many ways. I wish them and their family the best :slight_smile:

As Sophie Tucker once allegedly said, it’s simple arithmetic. 40 goes into 90 a lot more than 90 goes into 40.

Regards,
Shodan

That’s one of my favorite Sophie Tucker jokes, Shodan!

Yes, there’s a huge age difference, but given that this relationship has evolved over 15 years I hardly think anyone is rushing into things. While it’s rare, it’s not impossible for there to be actual love across such an age difference, and the older the parties involved the less the age thing matters.

As my mother used to say, “Some people don’t mind the feeling of old age sinking in.”

He and his wife were married for almost 50 years. His relationship with his now fiancee began about 5 years after her death.

He was succeeded in the senate by Rick Santorum.

A 50-year age gap? Yikes.

But hey, fifteen years is probably plenty of time to figure things out. Best of luck to them.

I find it jarring that the few headlines I’ve seen about this story make no mention of the gender of the Senator, just that there is a Senator marrying a man.

Then I remember that oh yeah, most Senators (especially old old ones) throughout history have been men.

I dunno why I find it so jarring!

Will wonders never cease?

I’d have said “from the sublime to the ridiculous.” :wink: I have to figure out a particular penance for me, since Santorum came to prominence from MY state. :smack:

I agree.

Was I the only one who opened this thread, saw it was a gay marriage, and was sort of relieved?

And does that make me a bad person?

What exactly is it that you find “creepy”?

My own marriage has been called “creepy” because of our 20-year age difference.

I’d assume Gyrate finds the 50 year age difference creepy.