The Democrat who defeated Roy Moore reaffirmed his support for the LGBT community.

U.S. Sen. Doug Jones told Senate staffers Wednesday that having a gay son has influenced his views on LGBT rights, reports the Washington Blade. Jones, a Democrat who is best known for beating Roy Moore in the special election for senator from Alabama, had left LGBT constituents happy that one of the nation’s worst homophobes was not in Congress.

At an event hosted by the Gays, Lesbians & Allies Senate Staff, when asked about his son Carson’s out and proud Instagram account, Jones said, “We’ve all seen it,” adding that “it would be misleading” if he said it had no impact on his beliefs, because “at the end of the day, a lot of this is so personal.”

“Has it affected me? Absolutely,” Jones said. “Did my representation … of a probate judge in Jefferson County whom we defended when Roy Moore tried to shut him down giving marriage licenses? That affected me too.” Moore, as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, had urged state officials to ignore federal courts’ marriage equality rulings and had taken many other anti-LGBT stances.

Although Jones didn’t emphasize LGBT rights in his campaign to represent a conservative state, he has defended transgender rights. “Everything affects you, but obviously a child affects you more than anything else,”  Jones said at the event. “I’m happy to do that, I’m happy to be there to defend him — when he can be defended, as we always say, when he can be defended.”

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