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.
Wouldn’t a Christian say there is no such thing as a same sex marriage? He could/would attend a same sex civil ceremony for relative or close friend. But there is no such thing as a marriage between two same sex persons. They want to call it that but it is not.
If Cruz “takes a stand”, as you put it, he will lose.
Oh how cool, how hip, how in.
Which RINO can out-gay the other RINO?
Which RINO can show they embrace tolerance and diversity more than the other RINO?
Well they are really showing their colors... which RINO can be the brightest rainbow and outshine the other RINO?
Too funny.
Soon it will be a hate crime not to attend a gay wedding, so the issue will go away......
Sorry, but that is a totally irrelevant question. I don’t care what each candidate would do as a private citizen. I am interested in seeing whether they care enough about freedom of conscience to work toward putting in laws in place that at least allow people who defend themselves in court (not necessarily a guarantee) when they feel their conscience dictates a certain course of action that doesn’t directly hurt someone else.
Only Santorum is right.
Easy: “There’s no such thing as “ghey weddings”.
;’)
**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.**
Santorum bump.
Just more “gotcha “ questions... Republicans should stop playing the game
Good idea.
I'm looking forward to the day when all of the Paultards are shown the door.
These are all great posts. I hope the candidates (or their flunkies) are reading this thread.
The game needs to be changed. Therefore, we need a game changer as the conservative candidate.
Cruz's reply was fine.
I also support anyone who attacks the canard that there can be a marriage between anyone but one man and one woman. I don't know if Santorum said anything other than 'no' - but it would have been good to have launched into the reasons 'why'. Namely - we may love the people involved, but we are not going to celebrate their spiritual suicide. It would be analogous to a friend, or relative, inviting me to watch them slice their arms up with a knife, or to shoot up drugs. If I can't stop them - I certainly am not going to be party to their self-destruction.
Sure, Santorum would've been thereafter branded an unelectable kook - but at least he might get some people thinking about what is at stake here. He's not going to be elected anyways. The Conservatives will gravitate to Cruz and Walker and the big government RINOs to Bush and Christie. I suppose Santorum, Fiorina, and the others will hang around - but I don't see them capturing much of the vote.
I’m good with that.
My gay friends and relatives (step relatives) would not be surprised at me not participating in their wedding, or civil wedding, and I would not have any problem explaining it to them.
When it doesn’t involve “gay”, people don’t have a problem with this kind of personal values thing. Many parents love their children’s boyfriend or girlfriend and know that they live together, and may even visit their apartment, but the kids aren’t shocked when the parents don’t allow them to share a bed in the parent’s home, it is just accepted as a personal boundary internal to the parent.
If your anti-war sister refuses to attend your son’s graduation from basic training, does everyone freak out? No, they accept it as part of her values boundaries and they get on with life and she shows up for dinner later in the day and everything is just fine.
Cruz ain’t playin’ the media gotcha game.
So for instance:
My initial reaction upon being presented with such a question would be to say “absolutely not, I would not attend a gay “wedding”
BUT, that's because in my mind when I hypothetically imagine a gay “wedding” I imagine a religious ceremony occurring within a Church being bless by God. And since I would consider thing a thing sacrilegious, I could never participate in such an event any more than I would attend a “black mass”
That's just what pops into MY head initially when I imagine the hypothetical.
But, that's just what's in MY head.
Every single person who hears the question and hears the answer may be imagining a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT situation.
Maybe they are imagining a civil ceremony occurring at a courthouse in front of a judge of a son or daughter, which would (in my opinion) be an entirely different matter.
” I’m looking forward to the day when all of the Paultards are shown the door. “
Paul earned our wrath, in spades!
Only an unethical, amoral IDIOT would support him.
Only an unethical, amoral IDIOT would support him.
*******************************
Why would anyone with standards support him?
"In October 2013, Paul was the subject of some controversy when it was discovered that he had plagiarized from Wikipedia part of a speech in support of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli. Referencing the movie Gattaca, Paul quoted almost verbatim from the Wikipedia article about the film without citing the source.[117][118][119]
Evidence soon surfaced that Paul had copied passages in a number of his other speeches and published works nearly verbatim from other authors without giving credit to the original sources,[120][121] including in the speech he had given as the Tea Party rebuttal to the president's 2013 State of the Union address and in a three-page-long passage of Paul's book Government Bullies, which was taken directly from an article by the conservative think thank The Heritage Foundation.[122][123]
When it became apparent that an op-ed article Paul had published in the Washington Times and testimony he had given before the Senate Judiciary Committee both contained material that was virtually identical to an article that had been published by another author in The Week a few days earlier,[124] the Washington Times said that the newspaper would no longer publish the weekly column Paul had been contributing to the paper.[125]
After a week of almost daily news reports of new allegations of plagiarism, Paul said that he was being held to an "unfair standard", but would restructure his office in order to prevent mistakes in the future, if that would be what it would take "to make people leave me the hell alone."
Source: Wikipedia
Exactly. When you’ve already made your values as a Bible-believing Christian clear through your life, either they won’t ask or they won’t expect a “Yes” RSVP. Or they have an ulterior motive.
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