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.
I don’t trust Walker at all.
Two years ago he was openly advocating effective open borders, saying everyone who wants to come here, whether from Mexico (as he put it) or any other country in the world, should be allowed to come in so easily that nobody would bother to cross the border illegally. Oh, and he’d legalize the illegals here now, to be followed by giving them citizenship.
To trust Walker on immigration now would be like trusting that Obama wasn’t for gay marriage all along.
Too bad we don’t yet have a candidate in the race who wouldn’t grant amnesty to those already here, however...
There is a huge difference and the writer knew that Walker had not attended a gay wedding, yet wrote it anyway.
The marriage is the official marriage ceremony and people who attend are in support of the couple and the formal ceremony, you don’t attend a wedding as a dissident.
I’m not an expert on wedding receptions so someone can correct me if they are more official or meaningful than I know about, but as far as I know they are just the family and friends getting together after the wedding is over.
The kind of thing that a Rabbi or a Priest might attend who hadn’t felt that he could attend the wedding because of a mixed marriage or something. Even if I am off on that idea and the reception is more than I thought it was, it still isn’t close to a wedding.
In my case I am pretty sure that I would not attend the reception for an acquaintance, because it would be guaranteed to be distasteful, but I might attend for someone real close to me, and who I wanted to continue a relationship with, especially if we had been at odds over the “wedding”, and some healing was needed.
I will have to watch the discussions and put more thought into that, but the “marriage” ceremony is clearly out of bounds.
There’s a good bit of tradition at the reception, such as toasting the bride and groom (?), cutting the cake, throwing the garter (?) and the bouquet (?), and I couldn’t stomach that. I’m sorry Walker could. And no, it makes no difference to me whether it’s a family member or a good friend’s son or daughter.
Thanks!
Good idea, show all liberty loving constitutional conservatives the door. That should do wonders for fund raising. /not
If you want to blaspheme the work of God go ahead, but you will be left in the dust.
One only has to look at the responses of the members of this site to see how the MSM is playing all of us and the GOP as self eating purists.........
Folks who passionately would defend a Christian America but then don’t want to get within a 10 foot pole of actually living that way, are an irony.
Well said......
“grace for me but not for thee”
Ronald Reagan treated Russia better than some are treating some evolving GOP politicians.
Rand Paul’s stance is compromise when it’s politically expedient, and let the left totally take over the Conservative part of the GOP, no thank you Rand..
But of course the lying, deceptive Rand Paul Paulbots here on FR will tell us that this statement from Rand Paul was him talking about leaving these social issues to the states, of course totally ignoring exactly what Rand Paul said in his statement here....
The question should be asked of Marco Rubio, how does he know so much about gay issues ?
Just exactly how does he come to these conclusions about gay issues ?
Has he ever struggled with his own sexual identy ? Yes or no ?
Attending a gay wedding is basically condoning it, giving approval to it.
I worked with a lot of gays in graphics in Manhattan. I could put up with the pedicures, the eccentrics, But I almost tackled a “guy” for singing Dancing Queen and doing pirouettes around the office. Another guy told me he would meet GROUPS of men in the park and they would go to hotels for orgies, and he didn’t tell them he was HIV positive. What they did together I cannot print here and most would vomit.
I went to a party at one couples house because a girl I liked was going. It was the WEIRDEST experience of my life. Looked like that scene out of sleeper with the gay robot lo. There were some very nice guys who had partners but I could never go to a wedding because I think it’s silly
Rand Paul, the master of political propaganda deception and craftsman of used car salesmen tactics.
Rander Panderer
Actually, the question was, “Would you attend the gay wedding of a family member?”
Cruz apparently said, he had never been invited to a gay wedding. However, he would attend a reception - but not a wedding.
Why isn’t this being publicized, instead of saying “pass”??
How EXACTLY are Paultards "liberty loving constitutional conservatives"?
The Pauls are the ultimate big government statists. Sure they hate government at the federal level, but they are fine with ANYTHING as long as it's done at the state level.
That's what this phony notion of "states rights" is all about. They believe that the states have rights, but that's not what out Constitution sets forth. PEOPLE have rights, states have powers that are granted by the PEOPLE. If states have rights AND powers, it is almost axiomatic that the rights of the people will be infringed and that is exactly what's happening in America today.
Look at abortion, many Paultards insist that abortion is a "states right" issue; in other words, they are pro-choice-by-state. Which simply means that each state is empowered to declare persons to be non-persons and this is a formula that has proved disastrous EVERY time it has been employed throughout history. Now granted, both Pauls have said that they want to abolish abortion nationwide, but they quickly assure their libertarian base that there will be "thousands" of "exceptions" that will allow the American Holocaust to continue unabated.
And what of same-sex "marriage"? Once again, the Pauls are all for it provided it's done at the state level. However, the reality is that it is a practical impossibility to work this way, people moving to different states and federal tax issues effectively require marriage to be a federal issue. Certainly all states have long had different laws about marriage; however, it has been established that these marriages are valid in other states (Loving v. Virginia comes into play). Now, either the Pauls are too incompetent to comprehend this or they are fully aware of it and are perfectly fine with same-sex "marriage" becoming federal policy.
That should do wonders for fund raising. /not
Perhaps you can enlighten us on how the Paultard "money bombs" have benefited anyone other than the Pauls. Paultards are often anarchists and have no interest in supporting actual conservatives because true conservatism flies in the face of everything they believe.
” Paultards are often anarchists and have no interest in supporting actual conservatives because true conservatism flies in the face of everything they believe. “
Amen to that, brother!
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