When Ted Cruz says, “Marriage is a question for the states,” what he really means is that states should be free to discriminate. Because liberty.
Cruz was asked about same-sex marriage on Good Morning America Monday by a married, gay Republican. Specifically, the questioner wanted to know what Cruz would do to protect him and his husband from institutionalized discrimination.
In short, Cruz would do nothing because “religious liberty is something that protects every one of us.”
That was disturbing enough. But the rest of Cruz’ answer should send chills down the spine of anyone who cares about protections from discrimination of all kinds:
“I am a constitutionalist and under the Constitution, marriage is a question for the states… And so, if someone wants to change the marriage laws, I don’t think it should be five unelected lawyers down in Washington dictating that.
“Instead, if you want to change the marriage laws, convince your fellow citizens to change the laws. And by the way, it may end up that — we’ve got 50 states — that the laws in one state may be different than another state and we would expect that.”
Cruz’s answer makes it sound as though the U.S. Supreme Court consists of five crony appointees when, in fact, they are vetted and approved by our democratically-elected U.S. Senate. Furthermore, the Constitution that Cruz claims to love so much provides that one of our three branches of government is the judicial branch.
But maybe even worse than Cruz’ radical disregard for a pillar of our republic is the implication of his remarks. Steve M., at No More Mister Nice Blog, caught the significance:
“Cruz isn’t just saying that states should be able to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. He’s also saying, by implication, that Loving v. Virginia was wrongly decided in 1967. If Cruz believes without qualification that ‘marriage is a question for the states,’ then he believes a state ought to be able to restrict marriage to couples of the same race, as did Mildred and Richard Loving’s home state of Virginia, along with fifteen other states, until the High Court unanimously declared miscegenation laws unconstitutional in the Loving decision.”
This isn’t just an outdated hypothetical. As recently as 2011, 46% of Mississippi Republicans wanted to ban interracial marriage.
And what else would Cruz want to take out of the hands of the Supreme Court? Civil rights? Slavery? Women’s right to vote? Cruz is traveling down not just a slippery slope but a steep one.
Featured image by DonkeyHotey via Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) License.
