Under the reasoning of likely GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush, state bans on interracial marriage should still be valid. Or at least that is the take away from his statements that states should be free to decide whether or not same sex couples should have the right to marry. As for the rights of citizens under the U.S. Constitution, Bush would simply brush those aside. The position is akin to that of "states rights" advocates that long used that argument to support Jim Crow laws and other discriminatory state laws. LGBTQ Nation has details. Here are highlights:
As he considers running for president, former governor Jeb Bush is not offering supportive words about same-sex marriages coming to the state of Florida.We truly do not need another Bush in the White House. Likewise, we don't need religion intertwined in the civil laws.
“It ought be a local decision. I mean, a state decision,” Bush told the Miami Herald on Sunday. “The state decided. The people of the state decided. But it’s been overturned by the courts, I guess.”
On Monday, Bush issued a follow-up statement, saying “We live in a democracy, and regardless of our disagreements, we have to respect the rule of law.”
He called for respect for those on both sides of the issue, including committed gay couples and “those of us who believe marriage is a sacrament and want to safeguard religious liberty.”
Bush’s comments are in line with past statements, but with same-sex marriage set to become legal in Florida on Tuesday, his remarks are sure to bring attention to his guarded approach to gay rights by both supporters and opponents of marriage equality.
As governor, he was against same-sex marriage but wasn’t publicly enthusiastic about the successful 2008 campaign to rewrite the Florida Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Bush, who left office in 2007, said the change wasn’t needed, since state law already restricted marriage to heterosexual couples. Two years ago, he suggested in a PBS interview that gay parents could be held up as role models, even as he said “traditional marriage is what should be sanctioned” by the government.
1 comment:
Mr Bush, we do NOT live in a democracy (though we advocate it abroad) but in a republic whose slave-owning founders very consciously aimed to block democracy.
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