Posted on 07/08/2015 5:06:55 PM PDT by markomalley
Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said Wednesday he would oppose a constitutional amendment allowing states to ban same-sex marriage after the Supreme legalized it nationwide, even though he disagrees with the landmark 5-4 decision.
“I don’t support a constitutional amendment. I don’t believe the federal government should be in the marriage regulation business,” the Florida senator told reporters after a speech the Cedar Rapids Country Club in Iowa.
“We can continue to disagree with it. Perhaps a future court will change that decision, in much the same way as it’s changed other decisions in the past. But my opinion is unchanged, that marriage should continue to be defined as one man and one woman. The decision is what it is, and that’s what we’ll live under,” he said.
He said after the Obergefell decision came down that it should be respected as the law of the land, an orthodox position on a Supreme Court ruling but one which got him smacked around by social cons who accused him of caving too quickly to judicial tyranny. The solution to that political problem was obvious: He could endorse a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision, which would itself become the superseding law of the land. His friends in the donor class might grumble at an amendment that would seek to ban SSM outright but they’d surely be okay with one that proposed letting states define marriage within their own borders. It’s a federalist compromise on the issue, one that would allow state majorities to legalize gay marriage on their own without Republicans standing in their way. And it has zero chance of being ratified given the Democratic numbers in Congress so there’s no real political cost for someone who’s on record as backing traditional marriage to support it. Scott Walker and Ted Cruz have already endorsed the idea. All Rubio would be doing would be joining them.
Yet he refuses. I could understand if he justified his position by saying “an amendment will never pass” — that would at least be true, if not politically astute — but he’s not saying that. Instead he gives the bizarro reason that “the federal government should [not] be in the marriage regulation business,” which is … exactly what many conservatives have said in criticizing the Supreme Court’s decision. The Court’s part of the federal government and they’ve now imposed a coast-to-coast regulation on marriage. If you don’t believe the feds should be messing around with this subject, you should support returning the matter to the states, no? Rubio’s tactics are usually lucid but I don’t get why he’d go this route, unless he thinks that mere rhetorical support for a longshot amendment will be such a liability in the general election that he’d rather stay away from it in the primary. And if he feels that strongly, why continue to defend traditional marriage at all? Why not just “evolve” and be done with it?
In lieu of an exit question, on a semi-related note, enjoy the tweet of the day from Slate’s Will Saletan:
What you said!
Thanks for playing Marco. Cruz will make you Postmaster General in his admin.
He earned this salutation when he joined the “gang of eight”.
I was sure I wouldn’t vote for Rubio in either the primaries or even in the General.
Now there is no doubt, none what so ever, that I’ll ever again even remember his name with anything other than other than the contempt reserved for turncoats.
Marco Rubio, all stupid, all the time.
Or at least as brilliant as Rick Perry.
Marco the Rube.. killing HIMSELF slowly.
Rather than sucking up people’s energy, maybe it would focus people’s energy. It would give a channel to diffused energy that might otherwise dissipate. The only way I see it being harmful is if there were a better alternative that it was distracting from. But I don’t see the better alternative.
And then wrongly states that he doesn't think the feds should be involved - after opining that the States shouldn't have a say.....he's almost as good as a Clinton or Obama when it comes to making nonsense statements.
We don’t need more big government, thanks.
States Rights mean the right for states to adopt policies you and I don’t like. We are then free to move to a different state, one more to our liking.
We need to protect other states from having to adopt those policies they oppose, not impose a one-size-fits-all policy to the whole nation. That would make us no better than the liberals.
I was sort of thinking about the incorrect answer too. I mean really if my wife and myself are related by blood than I’m a bit worried.
Nobody is paying attention to the real threat: the passage of an act that is claiming anti-discrimination protection for gays and “transgendered” persons. This would extend to employment, housing, etc., just as it bans discrimination according to race now.
So far the GOP has managed to defeat it, but I don’t think they’re going to be able to hold out long. Once it happens, it’s going to be seriously bad news for the churches.
Don’t forget, a Constitutional amendment takes years and years to achieve. They’ll have this anti-discrimination thing through in no time, however, and then it won’t even be possible to propose the amendment.
People should be looking for the creation of some law that will protect Christians and other objectors, which is immediately urgent.
“e” is the correct answer, according to them. So any two people, of any makeup and kind, can be a family, as long as they care for and take care of each other. Heck, they might not even live together.
Like I said the answer was poorly written, but essentially correct. Not all people in a family are related by blood. Not all families have two parents. Not all have two working adults. If we reduce this to selecting the most correct answer rather than the strictly correct answer then "e" is still it
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