Quit asking me about those gay guys!
GOP candidates flocked to Iowa's Faith and Freedom Summit over the weekend to burnish their anti-LGBT cred and rail against the right of taxpaying gay Americans to share in the benefits of marriage. James Hohmann brings us
all the jaunty details.
Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, and Ted Cruz all elbowed their way to the stage for the opportunity to prove that they were the singular person who could turn back the hands of time to the 1950s so everyone could breathe a sigh of relief. Notably, Jeb Bush did not show up, though he sent a representative who said Bush had always been for "traditional marriage."
That may not cut it for Iowa's social conservatives, who have been suffering terribly ever since the state's Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage back in 2009. Somehow, we must have missed all the news reports of rioting and protests and chaos since that happened, but surely it's been just unbearable there in the Hawkeye State. Hard to believe there hasn't been a mass exodus ever since those crazy gays who want to commit themselves in lifelong partnership to each other have held the state hostage.
No worries, here comes the GOP cavalry!
Iowa Rep. Steve King, who is not running for president, devoted his entire speech to the marriage cases at the Supreme Court because, what else could there be to talk about?
Bobby Jindal waved his recent NYT op-ed fervently supporting religious liberty around like a new American flag.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz assured the crowd of his opposition to marriage equality and plugged his new anti-marriage equality bills. But Cruz had a little trouble explaining his attendance early last week at a foreign policy dinner hosted by two gay businessmen.
Head below the fold for more on this story.
Asked twice if he was aware that a 23-year-old had apparently overdosed on drugs at the same apartment where he went for the fundraiser just six months ago, Cruz declined to answer...
He declined to say whether he regretted the venue choice but attacked the media for covering the appearance...
During his speech to the group, Cruz said liberals are obsessed with “mandatory gay marriage in all 50 states.” Like King, he asked the audience to join him in prayer on the day of the oral arguments. He told the story of an Iowa couple who stopped putting on weddings after a court ordered them to perform services for gays.
Seems like liberals aren't the only ones obsessed with gay marriage.
But frankly, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has a shot at winning Iowa but nowhere else, really took the wedding cake.
“Let me be clear: I’m not backing off because what I’m saying is true,” he said. “We’re criminalizing Christianity in this country by telling people who hold to an orthodox worldview of biblical marriage that if you still believe that … you will be guilty of discrimination, which could result in some kind of civil or criminal action against you.”
Outlawing discrimination—it's just awful. Clearly, the rights of Bible thumpers should trump all and everyone else should just be left to fight over the scraps of human dignity and Constitutional protections that are left over.
