Sen. Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican who just can’t seem to keep his foot and his mouth separate, has managed an incredible feat. He Just put his other foot in in his mouth on the same issue that got him into trouble the last time: marriage equality.
The Senate is going to vote on a bill enshrining marriage equality in federal law in the next few weeks, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised Wednesday. "Let me be clear, a vote will happen—a vote on marriage equality will happen on the Senate floor in the coming weeks, and I hope there will be 10 Republicans to support it," Schumer said at a news conference. For whatever reason, right now Schumer is letting Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Kyrsten Sinema work with Republican Susan Collins try to find those 10 Republicans.
As of just a couple of weeks ago, one of the 10 was possibly going to be Johnson. Back in July, he released a statement suggesting he had no problem with that. “Prior to the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, I supported civil unions,” Johnson said in the statement. “After Obergefell, I considered the issue settled.” Apparently that was a little too much mouth-opening, so Johnson had to walk it back.
All of a sudden he’s decided that he can’t support it because of “religious freedom” gobbledygook these guys always fall back on.
Why is he still here? It’s way past time for Ron Johnson to exit the Senate. Help make that happen, and increase the Democrats’ majority while you’re at it.
Campaign Action
And the whole reason he wrote and released a statement saying same-sex marriage was all right by him in the first place? He only did that because reporters kept asking about it. “So you just get hounded on this crap, right?" Johnson said, of fundamental human rights. That’s we he considers “this crap.”
"So just to get them off my backs, I wrote a press release, and I said I always supported civil unions. Never felt that we needed to do anything other than that."
It’s not like abortion, he says. This is absolutely settled law.
“Now, completely different than Roe v. Wade," Johnson said of Obergefell, the marriage equality decision. “Roe v. Wade needed to be overturned to protect people in the future. Stare decisis is really powerful when, if the Supreme Court were to overrule a previous decision, even if it’s wrongly decided—that’s kind of how this all came up.” Sure. Except what the hell? That is nonsense, any way you cut it. Words that don’t string together in any kind of sense. And boy, was he on a roll with that.
“Because Justice Thomas is probably right that it was wrongly decided,” Johnson added, presumably referring to Obergefell. “But that’s a different issue as to whether or not the Supreme Court would overturn it. They never will. I do not see any scenario.” Except it’s not a different issue. The previous court did a thing to help people that the current court—and particularly Thomas—hates and will summarily overturn. There is no difference between Roe and Obergefell as far as Thomas and who knows how many of the other four or five extremists on the Supreme Court are concerned.
Nonetheless, Collins and Baldwin are working on a compromise, which you know is bad news because it is involving Collins, to address those gobbledygook religious concerns. Like—and this is real—polygamy. They are pretending like they have to explicitly say they are not codifying people marrying multiples of other people simultaneously.
Of course they don’t have to put that in there. That’s Susan Collins concern trolling like she always does, delaying the vote on this like she always does at the behest of Mitch McConnell until all the time has run out and the vote never happens. Remember her and Joe Manchin’s elections reforms? Yeah, that.
They certainly don’t need to be do anything to answer the “concerns” of assholes like Ron Johnson. Again, here’s what he said about his fellow Wisconsin senator, Tammy Baldwin: “We’ve got enough problems. We have enough things to divide this nation. Let’s not drag that back up," Johnson said. "So I’m not happy with the Baldwins of the world who are just opening that wound and opening that debate."
Why Democrats would give him an easy out two months before his tough reelection is a mystery. Schumer needs to schedule the vote. Up or down, no amendments. If Republicans filibuster it, well that will just provide a moment of clarity for voters, and help remind them of what’s at stake in November.
Donald Trump and his MAGA allies came close to overthrowing our democracy on January 6, and they will try again if they win in 2022. The best thing you can do is to help get out the Democratic vote for the midterms, and we need everyone to do what they can. Click here to find all the volunteer opportunities available.
RELATED STORIES