Rick Perry: ‘Obviously, homosexual marriage is not fine with me’
Image via Wikipedia
After stirring controversy among conservatives by saying the passage of New York’s gay “marriage” law was “fine” with him, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has clarified that he is against the marriage law, but in favor of states’ rights on the marriage issue.
“I probably needed to add a few words after that ‘it’s fine with me,’ 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,” Perry told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Thursday. The rest of Perry’s interview with Perkins will be broadcast on Washington Watch Weekly on Friday.
Perry had made the original marriage remarks before a crowd of GOP donors in Aspen, Colorado last week.
“Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said marriage can be between two people of the same sex. And you know what? That’s New York, and that’s their business, and that’s fine with me,” the governor had said.
That statement earned a swipe from former Senator Rick Santorum. “I am not, as some in this race have said, OK with New York doing what they’re doing,” Santorum said Tuesday in Ankeny, Iowa. “What New York did was wrong. I will oppose it and I will go to New York, if necessary, to help overturn it.”
Perry’s position in favor of states’ rights based upon the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution extends also to abortion, even though he is himself pro-life. ABC reports that Perry indicated to reporters in Houston that states should be allowed to decide for themselves whether to legalize or ban abortion if Roe were overturned.
“You either have to believe in the 10th Amendment or you don’t,” said Perry. “You can’t believe in the 10th Amendment for a few issues and then [for] something that doesn’t suit you say, ‘We’d rather not have states decide that.’”
The 10th Amendment reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
“Our society has an obligation to enact laws that recognize and protect the smallest members of our human family,” said the National Right to Life Committee in response to Perry’s statement, according to ABC.
“Prior to Roe, states had the ability to enact laws that extended full legal protection to unborn children. We look forward to the day when Roe v. Wade is changed, and the states will once again have the ability to pass legislation that fully protects mothers and their unborn children.”
