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Do you have a transcript for it?

Dial-up doesn’t get along well with youtube.

Here you are:

THOMPSON: As far as gay rights are concerned, I looked at this New Hampshire decision by the New Hampshire state legislature, and it concerned me when they passed a bill. Number one, this wasn't some renegade judge, this was a state legislature and they made a decision to support civil unions. I look at it, and it seems like it's really a marriage bill that gives you all the rights of marriage.

I believe in federalism. I believe, generally speaking, that the federal government ought to concentrate on the enumerated powers and do the things it's supposed to be doing, as it's not doing, as we were just talking about, in many cases, and leave other things to the states. Places of innovation and competition, welfare reform, came out of that exercise. But on something like this, you've got something called full faith and credit. I think what is going to happen now is that people are going to take these state laws and go to other places that doesn't have these state laws and strongly oppose them and say, “We deserve full faith and credit.” There’s an exception to that, the lawyers will tell you, except it’s contrary to a home state’s public policy, you know, they can get around it. I think federal judges probably are going to start saying, “No, the Fourteenth Amendment requires you that you to give them full faith and credit,” and you're going to have that situation going on around the country.

Therefore, I think that it's an appropriate subject for a constitutional amendment, but one that calls for leaving it up to the states to make these decisions themselves, but not giving full faith and credit. If you don't have it in your state, nobody else can impose it on you. It seems to me like that that’s a fair solution.

The New Hampshire law at issue is called "An act permitting same gender couples to enter civil unions and have the same rights, responsibilities, and obligations as married couples."

It's as close to gay marriage as you could possibly get. You may be interested that John McCain has similarly rationalized the New Hampshire bill under the same "federalist" argument as Thompson:

"While, as a federalist, John McCain recognizes the right of the state of New Hampshire to regulate the institution of marriage and to pass civil union laws, he strongly believes in the current law that declares that no other state should be legally bound to recognize same sex marriages or unions that might be legal in other places."

As a followup, here is the pro-marriage constitutional amendment that has in the past been proposed before Congress:

"SECTION 1. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups." McCain has opposed this amendment with the same "federalist" nonsense.