Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, yet another Republican who has cast himself as the lead in the musical “The White House 2016,” has a Solomonic response to that messy gay rights issue: Split the baby. In an interview on Bloomberg TV with Al Hunt, Walker was asked about his state’s mix of gay rights laws, which include workplace discrimination protections that date back to 1982. Walker responded with an uncomfortable mix of trying to look reasonable without irritating the party base.
WALKER: In Wisconsin, we’ve had anti-discriminatory laws that are very similar to [ENDA] for more than 30 years and they work quite effectively. We’re also a state that has a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as one man and one woman…
HUNT: So, similar to the Wisconsin bill, the House bill should be something that…
WALKER: Yeah, I mean, we’ve not had problems. We’ve had no problems — I should say, limited problems — with that. At the same time, we still have a constitutional amendment that defines marriage. There’s a healthy balance there.
Just as a reminder, Walker’s idea of a healthy balance includes having tried to overturn the state’s domestic partnership registry because banning marriage itself wasn’t enough. Fortunately for Walker, although Wisconsin is almost entirely surrounded by marriage equality states, the state won’t be tackling marriage equality any time soon. At a minimum that will give Walker’s syntax time to recover next time someone asks him about the issue.
hyhybt
This is like saying that clearing up your flu but leaving your ear infection untreated is a healthy balance.
madtown52761
“Women have the vote, so legislating their reproductive rights for them is a good balance.”
jar
@madtown52761: Touche.
jwtraveler
I disagree about the “healthy balance” approach, but given the choice, I could live much better without a marriage than I could without a job. As a matter of fact, I have for all my life.
Teleny
No surprise, another gross Republican.
jimbryant
In a way, I agree with Scott Walker. Banning discrimination is a good thing but prohibiting the changing of the marriage definition by the gay community might also be a good thing.
Marriage is defined as a uniting of different genders. It is NOT defined as a uniting of the same gender.
I believe that gay people should be allowed to unite but the sticking point with me is that we are taking a word “marriage” and re-defining it. It’s almost as if we are demanding that red be called black.
rextrek
jimbryant – hey nitwit – to F’N bad aint it about the word “marriage”….too late too – as u know 10’s of 1000’s of gay cpls ARE MARRIED, mARRIED, MARRIED!!!!!! No one OWNS that word..NO-one!!! Dont be an Uncle TOM dude, YOU deserve the same rights as anyone else – period!!!
Degas
@jimbryant: No, marriage WAS defined as legally uniting a man and woman. Now marriage is defined as legally uniting a man and man, a woman and woman and a man and woman in how many states and countries? I’m loosing count… Help me out here.
Cam
Funny how the right wing screams and cries that their rights are being violated if somebody says “Happy Holliday” instead of “Merry Christmas” and yet try to claim that not allowing gays to marry, or even to form contractual relations with each other is somehow not a violation of gays rights.
Walker, just another GOP bigot.
2eo
@madtown52761: That’s a vastly better analogy than the one I come up with, well said.
Joetx
Scott Walker is just another Koch brothers shill. Too bad once the revelation came to light, the majority in WI still voted for the walking turd.
krystalkleer
@jimbryant: hmmm…i just looked up MORON in the dictionary…funny thing…it says: mean’n “JIMBRYANT”
umm. the word by itself “marriage” like ANY other word in the human language(and here’s the concept you’ll probably have a hard time wrapp’n yer pea sized brain around)c-r-e-a-t-e-d by someone!
http://getoffmydress.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-black-plague.html