GOP Candidates on Marriage, DADT Repeal

[w8liftinglady]

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/06/14/GOP_Candidates_on_Marriage_DADT_Repeal/

Despite optimism that New York will become the next state in the nation to endorse marriage equality — a victory that hinges on support from key state Republican lawmakers — many candidates vying for the 2012 GOP nomination presented a regressive view of the future during Monday's CNN presidential debate in New Hampshire, with a solid majority supporting a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Of the candidates invited to the debate, only Herman Cain and Rep. Ron Paul opposed a federal marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Cain said the matter should be left up to the states, while Paul held a libertarian view and argued that government should not be in the business of marriage.

The remaining candidates, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Rep. Michele Bachmann, expressed support for a constitutional amendment.

Bachmann, who officially announced her 2012 candidacy at the debate, said "I don’t see that it’s the role of a president to go into states and interfere with their state laws," yet moments later said she supported an amendment restricting marriage to a man and a woman, arguing in part that "the best possible way to raise children is to have a mother and father in their life."

Gingrich, who presided over the House of Representatives as Speaker during the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, criticized the Obama administration’s decision not to defend the law in federal court and said that if the law is struck down, a constitutional amendment would become necessary.

Former Georgia representative Bob Barr, author of DOMA, has since said that the Obama administration should take steps not to enforce the law and has called for its legislative repeal.