Angered conservatives are vowing to make same-sex marriage a front-burner election issue, nationally and in the states, following the Obama administration's announcement that it will no longer defend the federal law denying recognition to gay married couples.I don't think hanging our nomination decision on gay marriage is a smart political move. With the economy still stumbling, radical Islam making new inroads all over the Middle East, Obamacare desperately in need of repealing, and a budget deficit which threatens to bankrupt America, I simply cannot put gay marriage at the top of my list of concerns and I don't want my nominee to be determined by his stance on that issue. Obsessing over single issues is a frequent weakness of conservatives and that's how you lose elections.
"The ripple effect nationwide will be to galvanize supporters of marriage," said staff counsel Jim Campbell of Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal group.
On the federal level, opponents of same-sex marriage urged Republican leaders in the House of Representatives to intervene on their own to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, against pending court challenges.
"The president has thrown down the gauntlet, challenging Congress," said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. "It is incumbent upon the Republican leadership to respond by intervening to defend DOMA, or they will become complicit in the president's neglect of duty."
Conservatives also said they would now expect the eventual 2012 GOP presidential nominee to highlight the marriage debate as part of a challenge to Obama, putting the issue on equal footing with the economy.
As I've said before, I don't like the idea of a national law or Constitutional amendment concerning marriage. That's a state issue and should be left to the states to decide. The candidate who makes that argument, if any dare, will get a lot of respect from me.
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Concur. Spending and defecits first. National security next. Social issues can be dealt with at lower priority--we need to win in 2012. Can't do much of anything if we don't win.
We need to spend some time on working through the priorities.
I'm guessing that those folks we see hanging from a wire at the end of a crane much care about marriage issues.
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