He did not voice support of gay marriage. He voiced support for the 10th amendment.
Perry signs anti-gay marriage pledge
http://www.boston.com/Boston/politicalintelligence/2011/08/perry-signs-anti-gay-marriage-pledge/sGqX6Ir6FL4HZwyOQSzvKN/index.html
Texas Governor Rick Perry is the latest Republican presidential candidate to sign a pledge against gay marriage. The pledge confirms Perry’s reversal of an earlier statement he made that he would leave the definition of marriage up to the states.
The pledge, put out by the National Organization for Marriage, has become a standard commitment among this year’s GOP contenders. Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum have also signed the pledge. Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is not signing any pledges.
The pledge commits a candidate to support a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman, defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court, appoint judicial nominees and an attorney general who would reject a constitutional right to gay marriage, establish a commission to investigate harassment of anti-gay marriage donors or organizers, and let the people of Washington, D.C., vote on gay marriage.
Perry has long opposed gay marriage. But he said in July, after New York legalized gay marriage, that he supports states’ rights and would not object if individual states implemented gay marriage. He told an audience in Colorado, “That’s New York, and that’s their business, and that’s fine with me.”
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What he supports is the constitution. And he would amend the constitution to ban gay marriage. But today, the constitution does not reference that subject so he supports the 10th amendment that leaves that up to the individual states.
Yeah I get it, St Rick supports states rights except for when he doesn’t.
There are more than a few conservatives who only respect the constitution to the point where it interferes with their world-view. I had a drag-out argument a couple of nights ago with someone who believed the 1st amendment shouldn’t stop the federal government from banning the worship of islam and closing all the mosques, because the government should be able to define Islam as “not a religion”. Worse, for my defense of the 1st amendment I was called a muslim sympathiser, and told I was defending Sharia law.