Posted on 04/21/2015 7:43:46 AM PDT by wagglebee
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 20, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Are you now, or were you ever, willing to attend a same-sex “wedding”? That seems to be the question lighting up the Republican presidential field, as GOP hopefuls who may one day have their finger on the nuclear button are asked the query over and over again.
So far, the Republican hopefuls' answers are yes, no, I have (sort of), and...unclear.
The media began by asking Florida's U.S. senator, Marco Rubio, if he would attend a homosexual 'wedding' ceremony, especially if he were invited by a relative or close friend.
“If there’s somebody that I love that’s in my life, I don’t necessarily have to agree with their decisions or the decisions they’ve made to continue to love them and participate in important events,” Rubio told Jorge Ramos of Fusion TV's America program.
Rubio, who became the third Republican to throw his hat in the ring last week, likened attending a same-sex “marriage” to attending the second marriage of a divorced friend. “If someone gets divorced, I’m not going to stop loving them or having them a part of our lives,” he said.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker – who has not yet formally announced his candidacy yet is considered a front-runner – said that he attended a same-sex reception, but not a ceremony. “I haven’t been to a [homosexual] 'wedding,' that’s true,” he said, “even though my position on marriage is still that’s defined between a man and a woman, and I support the Constitution of the state.”
“But for someone I love, we’ve been at a reception,” he added.
A series of candidates and potential candidates have faced similar hypotheticals.
Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, a libertarian-leaning Republican who strongly supported Mitt Romney in previous primaries, asked two contenders “a meta-question.” Is it more important to know whether a candidate would attend a homosexual wedding or whether a president will “destroy the Islamic State before it throws hundreds of thousands of gay men to their deaths”?
Former Pennsylvania senator and 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who has said he is considering another presidential run, said it was “amazing that the Left has not risen up” against Islamic Shari'a law. “They don't focus their energy on anything except the attempt to gather more power in this country by using this issue of same-sex 'marriage' as a tool to do that.”
Then he addressed the direct question: Would he attend a gay “marriage” ceremony?
“No, I would not,” he replied curtly. When asked why not, he said, “As a person of my faith, that would be something that would be a violation of my faith. I would love them and support them, but I would not participate in that ceremony.”
Ted Cruz, the first Republican to say he will seek the GOP's presidential nomination next year, gave a more roundabout reply.
“That's part of the 'gotcha' game that the mainstream media plays, where they come after Republicans on every front, and it's designed to caricature Republicans to make them look stupid or evil or crazy or extreme,” he said. “Sadly, most media players are not actual, objective journalists. They're active partisan players.”
He called reporters “the praetorian guard protecting the Obama administration” now gearing up to campaign for Hillary Clinton.
Cruz said he had not attended a gay “marriage” ceremony but made no commitments about the future.
“Well, I will tell you, I haven’t faced that circumstance,” he said. “I have not had a loved one have a gay wedding. You know, at the end of the day, what the media tries to twist the question of marriage into is they try to twist it into a battle of emotions and personalities. So they say, 'Gosh, any conservative must hate gays.'”
The Texas senator said that he is a conservative Christian and also “a constitutionalist.”
“What we’ve seen in recent years from the Left is the federal government and unelected federal judges imposing their own policy preferences to tear down the marriage laws of the states.”
“And so if someone is running for public office, it is perfectly legitimate to ask them their views on whether they’re willing to defend the Constitution, which leaves marriage to the states, or whether they want to impose their own extreme policy views like so many on the left are doing, like Barack Obama does, like Hillary Clinton does,” he said.
Well said!
I'm not disagreeing as to media motive, but it's a legitimate question.
We now know that Jeb Bush is willing to attend a ceremony celebrating something most conservative Republicans consider a horrible sin. He defends that position by saying it's comparable to remarriage of a divorced person.
Not all sins are equal. Bush may honestly not understand the doctrinal issues involved; after all, he's a convert to Roman Catholicism and hasn't placed church doctrine front-and-center in his prior campaigns. If he were running for the state legislature, I might give him a pass. But coming from a top-tier presidential candidate who grew up as the son of a president, this answer shows Bush wasn't prepared.
The parallel to Akin is actually a good one. There was NO excuse for Akin not being prepared to answer a question on abortion which every conservative Republican should expect to get from the media. With the Supreme Court decision coming soon on gay marriage, every conservative Republican needs to be prepared to answer gay marriage questions.
We just had our Todd Akin moment, and it's Jeb Bush who made the Akin-like statement.
Fortunately it's early enough in the campaign that we still have time to find out what Jeb Bush really believes. Bush supporters also have time to find a different candidate if he doesn't fix this fast.
I liked Santorum's answer. I can live with Cruz's answer at this stage in the campaign, but he'll keep getting asked until he gives a clear answer. Walker's answer needs to be understood in the context that HIS OWN LOCAL CHURCH went pro-gay, and he left it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he did things years ago in a "moderate" American Baptist Churches USA congregation that he's since decided are wrong, but I need details on what he believes now, not only what he did in the past.
And by the way, I live in Missouri. I voted for Akin in the primary and the general election. I also saw the Akin mess firsthand and the huge damage it created not just for him but for numerous other Republican candidates. I still believe his campaign could have been saved, but he has only himself to blame for what happened because he failed to prepare for an obvious question.
Let's be glad this is happening in April of 2015, not the late spring or early summer of 2016 when the candidate has been selected and we have to figure out how to play a game when the candidate made a major fumble.
There's no way I can edit. Can the Admin Moderator please change “Bush” to “Rubio” throughout my post and change this sentence as follows:
CURRENT: “But coming from a top-tier presidential candidate who grew up as the son of a president, this answer shows Bush wasn't prepared.”
REQUESTED FIX: “But coming from a top-tier presidential candidate, this answer shows Rubio wasn't prepared.”
I'm sick but that's no excuse. I blew it and I should know better. I'm going to step away from the keyboard and stop posting until I'm no longer sick. I can't let this happen twice.
This is an idiotic litmus test not unlike the boxer/briefs inquiry.
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