Katrina Trinko at NRO's The Corner blog reports:
Rick Perry clarified his remarks calling New York’s legalization of gay marriage “fine” in an interview today.
“I probably needed to add a few words after that ‘it’s fine with me,’” Perry told Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, “and that it’s fine with me that a state is using their sovereign rights to decide an issue. Obviously gay marriage is not fine with me. My stance hasn’t changed.”
... Pointing to his promotion of Texas’s Defense of Marriage Act, Perry said he had governed as a traditional marriage advocate.
He also noted that he has “long supported” the Federal Marriage Amendment.
“That amendment … defines marriage as between one man and one woman, and it protects the states from being told otherwise. And it respects the right of the people in the state by requiring that three-quarters of the states vote to ratify. It’s really strong medicine,” Perry said
14 Comments
I thought it was abundantly clear that perry was talking about state rights and was not endorsing gay marriage.
We are moving closer each day to a 3/4 of states vote on a federal marriage amendment that supports gods time tested one man, one woman truth in marriage.
Sorry NY, but every time the people vote, same-sex marriage is relegated to the dust bins of history.
When I hear such equivocations from a politician running for office I think of the Republican State Senators in NY who ran on the authentic Marriage issue & switched when they were led to believe it was politically expedient to do so.
I also think of Elijah's question to those who supposedly had allegiance to God's laws when he asked them, "How long will you straddle the issue?" from 1 Kings 18:21.
This is one pretty big difference between proponents of redefining marriage and proponents of traditional marriage- the former generally believe that the constitution (as currently written) requires their desired policy be imposed on all the states. They do not see any need to actually amend the U.S. constitution to say 'the right to marry a member of the same sex shall not be abridged.' We recognize the importance of procedure, and care about the means as well as the ends. For them, it is 'any means necessary' to achieve the desired goal.
Mike P, heh many of them would have you believe that SSM has been legal since 1868 with the ratification of the 14th amendment -- but we just now figured it out.
Grasping at any straw in sight I guess...
Courts have long ruled that all similarly situated citizens must be treated equally, lacking a rational public purpose to do otherwise. Sooooo...Go Marriage Equality!
Persons desiring to engage in the only kind of relationship there is a public interest in protecting are NOT "similarly situated" as those preferring a kind of relationship in which there is no such interest.There is no "rational public purpose" for treating same-sex sexual relationships as of enough worth to qualify as marriages.
RobinMichigan: Courts have long ruled that all similarly situated citizens must be treated equally, lacking a rational public purpose to do otherwise. "
The majority of high courts have found there is a rational basis to limit marriage to one man and one woman.
See: The Majority of Courts
Marriage -meh- "equality" supporters like to keep their arguments as simple as possible:
"No it isn't"
"So what"
Please apply the above in response to any post in support of maintaining the institution of marriage as intended these past thousand+ years.
Rick Perry is WRONG to suggest that marriage is a “States’ Rights” issue, because the federal government through its own actions has made marriage a FEDERAL issue. MOST of the legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities of marriage come from the FEDERAL government, including all kinds of tax breaks for married couples and survivor benefits under Social Security, so it would not do for a Gay couple that is legally married in New York to suddenly become UN-married if they relocate south to Pennsylvania.
There is also that pesky “Full Faith & Credit” clause, under which a Straight couple can fly off to Las Vegas for a drunken weekend, get married by an Elvis impersonator, that marriage is automatically honored in all 50 states. “States’ Rights” has NOTHING to do with it.
The only way marriage can be a “States’ Rights” issue is for the federal government to get out of the marriage business completely, and do away with the 1,138 benefits it grants to married couples. Tell me how thrilled most married couples would be with THAT.
I think that Rick Perry's initial comments were unwise but that it would be highly naive to assume that he was endorsing same-sex marriage. Perhaps he was saying that until we amend the US Constitution to specifically prohibit SSM, we have to honor the existing amendments to it?
Marriage is also a Federal issue and it is the Federal issue of keeping marriage between a man and a woman that is even more important than the states.
(1) At the first half of the last Century the USA entered into what is today the entitlement state. Taxes funded living centers for senior citizens, then along came Social Security, and Medicare. The federal benefits were granted as an incentive to procreate. This public policy was put into place because of our societal need to replenish ourselves and to continue our species. Since the entitilements are funded by taxes on the offspring of the married couples, the procreation federal benefits of one man/one woman marriage are thus justified.
(2) The federal and state benefits created inequality in the first place. This made singles and married people inequal under the law. Again this was justified with the reasons given in the first paragraph of this post. Homosexual advocates love to talk equallity but ignore the inequallity of singles in the first place. Singles benefit from other peoples marriages because their offspring pay the entitlement taxes which we all benefit from.
SSM must never become federal policy. It is a slap in the face of single people and totally unfair to them. Since same sex couples cannot procreate they do not deserve the over 1000 federal benefits of marriage as these priviledges and not rights were justified as incentives for procreation.
Whether or not a marriage is procreative may be left up to the individuals involved as a private matter.That those individuals must always be of opposite sexes is a public matter and the government has a responsibility to guarantee it.
Mylar2001: "....the federal government through its own actions has made marriage a FEDERAL issue."
A perfect example of that is anti-polygamy law, which is determined for the states from the federal level.