What Fred Thompson Believes (in his own words)

zach.e53.org ^ | August 17, 2007 | Zach Petersen

[longtermmemmory]

this is the one that is now troubling:

12.1 Gay Marriage

“Marriage is between a man and a woman, and I don’t believe judges ought to come along and change that. “

12.2 Civil Unions

“I think that that ought to be left up to the states. I personally do not think that that is a good idea, but I believe in many of these cases where there’s real dispute in the country, these things are not going to be ever resolved. People are going to have different ideas. That’s why we have states. We ought to give great leeway to states and not have the federal government and not have the Supreme Court of the United States making social policy that’s contrary to the traditions of this country and changing that overnight.”

and

this where he is in favor of it
Thompson: “Yes, yes, I think that with regard to gay marriage you have a full-faith-and-credit issue. I don’t think one state ought to be able to pass a law requiring gay marriage, or allowing gay marriage, and have another state be required to follow along, under full faith and credit. There’s some exceptions and exemptions for that.

“Hasn’t happened yet, but I think a federal court very well likely will go in that direction, and a constitutional amendment would cure that.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/po/20070817/co_po/fredthompsonurgesmarriageamendment

This is in conflict with his other statement on
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTY1MTQ1NWM3ZWQ5MTIxYjk3ZTIzNGJlZTI3YTBhZDA where he comes out against a the Federal Marriage Amendment

If necessary, he would support a constitutional amendment prohibiting states from imposing their laws on marriage on other states.

Fred Thompson does not support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.[emphasis added]


all these are in conflict.

I think Thompson needs to be far more aggressive and specific as to supporting or not supporting statutes. (ie would he allow rampant gun control from the states? would he allow gun suits from cities?)

If he is going to run as a social conservative he needs to by crystal clear he IS a social conservative. If he is going to just have the same positions as Romney and Guiliani on some issues we need to know that too.