Which Presidential Candidates Still Think There’s Wiggle Room To Get Rid Of Marriage Equality?

In the two weeks since the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriages must be recognized across the nation, there have been troubling (if not unsurprising) cases of government workers at the local level intervening with the law based on their own personal religious beliefs. Is this what the right means by “religious freedom?”

It’s easy to get angry at these people, like Kim Davis in Kentucky, who believe they somehow have the authority to negate the highest court in the land simply because they think a fictional character from 2,000 years ago would have turned his wine back into water if he ever found out gay people were getting hitched.

But while Kim Davis and her ilk are certainly a problem, they aren’t The problem. Up the ranks of power, a more troubling trend appears.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, both members of the not-so-exclusive club of 2016 Republican presidential candidates, are both pushing for a constitutional amendment that would let states ban same-sex marriage.

While the chances of it succeeding are abysmally low, they’re pouring fuel into the flames of homophobia. And they know it.

In 1967, the state of Virginia called an expert witness to argue against the merits of interracial marriage in the landmark Loving v. Virginia case.

Albert Gordon, author of Intermarriage: Interfaith, Interracial, Interethnic (tip: don’t ever read it) testified that interracial marriages, “hold no promise for a bright and happy future for mankind” and “bequeath to the progeny of those marriages more psychological problems than the parents have a right to bequeath to them.”

His obvious hogwash was unconvincing to the court and now reads as unmistakably offensive, just as Scott Walker, Ted Cruz and anyone holding a position of power who still thinks there’s room to go back on marriage equality will be seen for what they are: sore losers and bigots.

Marco Rubio, who admittedly disagrees with the court’s ruling, has the modicum of decency to speak like an adult even though things didn’t go his way.

“I don’t support a constitutional amendment. I don’t believe the federal government should be in the marriage regulation business,” the Florida senator told reporters after a speech at the Cedar Rapids Country Club in Iowa.

“We can continue to disagree with it. Perhaps a future court will change that decision, in much the same way as it’s changed other decisions in the past. But my opinion is unchanged, that marriage should continue to be defined as one man and one woman. The decision is what it is, and that’s what we’ll live under.”

Of course, a future court won’t change that decision, but the faster these so-called Christians swallow their reality pills, the better off we will all be as a nation — bigots included.