Posted on 06/26/2013 5:41:29 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Here's The latest in the continuing saga of Rand on the Skywire, trying to inch along the tightrope between libertarians and conservatives towards the GOP nomination on the other side.
Love him or hate him, the 2016 debates will be roughly 8,000 percent more interesting with him onstage than they would be otherwise.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told ABC News he believes the Supreme Court ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act was appropriate, and that the issue should be left to the states. He praised Justice Anthony Kennedy for avoiding “a cultural war.”
“As a country we can agree to disagree,” Paul said today, stopping for a moment to talk as he walked through the Capitol. “As a Republican Party, that’s kind of where we are as well. The party is going to have to agree to disagree on some of these issues.”…
Paul said he agreed with Kennedy, whom he called “someone who doesn’t just want to be in front of opinion but wants government to keep up with opinion.” He said Kennedy “tried to strike a balance.”
Many social conservatives won’t be happy to hear him talking about leaving things to the states, and they really won’t be happy with him waving off the culture war, but they were never Paul’s target constituency in the first place. If you’re a young, bridge-building, aspiring GOP nominee, the politic answer here is obvious: Support traditional marriage at the state level and oppose any lawmaking on the subject at the federal level. Be a socially conservative small-government federalist and hope that both social cons and moderate/libertarians each cut you enough of a break on your middle-ground position that the Skywire doesn’t sway too much. That’s the smart play for someone in Rand’s position (at least until he makes it to the general, when any misgivings about gay marriage at the state level will begin magically to melt away). Just one question: Does he support state traditional marriage laws at the state level? I honestly can’t tell. This morning he told Glenn Beck this:
“I think traditional marriage laws are now affirmed in 34 states,” the Kentucky Republican said on Glenn Beck’s radio show Wednesday morning, calling it the “good side of the ruling.”
So he does support them. But wait — a few months ago, he said this:
Social issues are another area where he thinks Republicans can make a better argument to independents and centrists without departing from their principles. Gay marriage, for instance, is one issue on which Paul would like to shake up the Republican position. “I’m an old-fashioned traditionalist. I believe in the historic and religious definition of marriage,” he says. “That being said, I’m not for eliminating contracts between adults. I think there are ways to make the tax code more neutral, so it doesn’t mention marriage. Then we don’t have to redefine what marriage is; we just don’t have marriage in the tax code.”
As I said at the time, that’s the sort of thing you often hear from libertarians who want the government, and not just the federal government, out of the marriage business altogether. I don’t think Rand could get away with that position in a GOP primary, which is why I assume he’s still nominally in favor of state marriage laws. Whether he’d have an Obama-esque “evolution” in support of liberalizing those laws to include gays once safely elected, though, I leave to you to decide.
Via Noah Rothman, here he is with Beck having a not-especially-libertarian exchange about whether legalizing gay marriage necessarily means legalizing polygamy. Beck’s more concerned about that than Paul is — Rand clarified what he said here about non-humans later in the day, in fact — but he does seem to see some hazy role for government in legislating morality. Some of his dad’s fans won’t like that, but plenty of mainstream conservatives will.
Update: A “wacko bird” divergence:
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) today released the following statement on the Supreme Court’s decisions on the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8:
Today’s Supreme Court decisions on marriage are a regrettable overreach against the will of the people as expressed through large, bipartisan majorities in Congress and directly through referendum in California – a markedly blue state.
Nothing in the Constitution compelled this result, and, once again, the Court has chosen to substitute its own views of public policy for the democratically expressed will of the voters.
The family is the fundamental building block of society, and I strongly support traditional marriage between one man and one woman. The voters of California made that same choice, until the courts improperly substituted their preferences for those of the people.
Our Federalism allows different states to make different policy judgments based on the values and mores of their citizens. Federal courts should respect that diversity and uphold that popular sovereignty, not impose their own policy agenda.
WRONG!
It was appropriate only to a flaming Lib or Libertarian.
Culture usually and eventually trumps law. Pursuing legal/political solutions to cultural issues is a waste of effort.
Rand, you are toast! toast in the pres primaries!!!
I would agree -patience... THOUGH always in the back of mind is that destruction of Sodom thing. God must of had some reason for choosing the nuclear option; I doubt that impatience was the reason.
The DOMA was exactly what I -- and many other conservatives -- correctly said it was when it was first passed into law: blatant, calculated political pandering at its worst. The Republicans passed the bill in both houses of Congress. Bill Clinton signed it into law in September 1996 for the sole purpose of appealing to moderate voters in his re-election bid less than two months later.
That same jack@ss Clinton said recently that it was a "bad law" -- even though he signed it into law. He has no problem maintaining a position of such two-faced hypocrisy because he was as unprincipled (and unserious) a man as you'll ever meet even in Washington.
Article VI, Clause 3: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States (emphasis added).
Cruz is the only one I trust.
I heard Cruz on Levin's show tonight. He was great...
If any other area of law worked that badly it wouldn't even exist in the first place. Would anyone even bother signing a contract to buy a home, for example, if the guy who sold it to you could come back 15 years later and make you give it back to him? ROFL.
BS.
I'm thrilled. A lot more should have been left to the States, and the Federal Government kept small.
If the homos want to dominate a state, people will at least be able to vote with their feet.
When it's national the last line of defense is the Church and it is under attack, too.
Personally, I will refuse to recognize any homosexual union as "marriage".
A “wife” can’t testify against her “husband”. If John Gotti could have married Sammy the Bull, he wouldn’t have died in prison.
Cruz 2016!!
I just find it kind of sleazy when the American people vote on something and five creeps wearing black robes say, “Oh no you don’t”. I don’t think that’s the America that the Founding Fathers had in mind.
IMHO you are getting hung up on proving and support your initially concluded point and as such you miss the forest for the trees.. It could be that Clinton was pandering. I would agree that MOST politicians are simply leaves blowing in the wind that will take the path of least resistance.
HOWEVER, while dismissing the spineless and unprincipled politicos I think you as well errantly dismiss the motivations of PEOPLE they were attempting to pander to.
As an example look at the Immigration Reform debate. The politicians who pander by seeking to build a border fence or hire more Border Patrol agents do so BECAUSE the laws already in place are not being enforced.
I would suggest that DOMA at its roots was a response to the clear and present danger of leftists IMPOSING a new definition of marriage around the country. A definition that as I mentioned before is in God's domain alone.
The country faces this question more and more now with Obama in office. WHAT do you do to oppose those that not only ignore the laws but as well subvert them. Write new laws? LOL!!!
Rest assured this and other issues are far from settled.
libertopian vs conservative
This issue is getting more and more “settled” by the day — but without any real consequence beyond what has already been in the works for a long time. Homosexuals are clamoring for the right to get married even as heterosexuals have been walking away from marriage for decades.
Part of Paul’s statements make no sense. Putting aside the merits of the case and the questions about federalism, Paul says that Kennedy averted a Culture War. How? By issuing a decision applauded by the Left? He seems to be endorsing the absurd notion that to use the courts to advance a liberal policy goal is somehow being neutral in the Culture War.
And the Sup Court has not reaffirmed the right of the states to define marriage. The statements by Roberts that the decision goes no further is meaningless. As Scalia pointed out, the reasoning used by Kennedy leaves virtually no room to allow traditional state marriage laws to persist. It’s just a matter of time before this Court or another takes Kennedy’s thinking to its logical conclusion and imposes gay marriage nationwide.
If equal protection under the law means anything, then anyone can enter into a relationship with another person (or multiple people), call it a "marriage," and then tell the IRS to go "F#%& off!" when it comes time to pay an estate tax.
Mark my words on this, folks -- the legal and accounting professions are going to do wonders for their clients under this Supreme Court ruling.
I’m stealing your post:)
Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Senor Rubio are unlikely to be the GOP nominees in 2016, and even more unlikely to be elected POTUS.
You lost me there. It seems you support a moral relative determination of truth e.g. the definition of marriage?
For example as it relates to government not defining but rather upholding INSTEAD of the definition of marriage we discussed the definition of life (to use your argument):
This issue is getting more and more “settled” by the day — but without any real consequence beyond what has already been in the works for a long time. Euthanists are clamoring for the right to Euthanize even as People have been increasingly committing suicide for decades.
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