GOP candidates’ same-sex marriage test: Who’s willing to be honest about what just happened?

A candidate pledging to push a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage is not a serious candidate

JIM NEWELL

The big political question coming out of last week’s historic ruling recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage is: How will the Republican presidential candidates react? Kidding, kidding. I’m kidding! The big question is really: who cares how they’ll react? They can run around saying whatever. They lost the central fight and now will exert most of their energy protecting those local government clerks whose religion prevents them from issuing marriage certificates. Go nuts.

But hey, just for fun. Which candidates will at least be honest with socially conservative voters about what’s just transpired? About the losing part?

Here is an honest thing that these candidates will say, or at least imply: that there will be no amendment to the Constitution rolling back the right to same-sex marriage. This couldn’t go anywhere a dozen years ago, when the Supreme Court first recognized gay peoples’ right to have sex, and it won’t go anywhere now, when strong majorities of the country support the right to same-sex marriage. It is hard to pass any constitutional amendment that rolls back an extension of freedoms. That’s sort of the point.

This is a simple test of integrity in the solicitation of votes. If the candidate promises to pursue a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage: Fraud! If the candidate rejects or even just sidesteps that question: Not fraud! (At least on that issue.)

Mike Huckabee, for example, would be a “fraud” here. His campaign sent out an ACTION ALERT that, like most ACTION ALERT emails, is a means of collecting email addresses for his database. His six-point plan to fight an Out-of-Control Supreme Court (emphases his) includes such specific policy measures as “End Judicial Tyranny & Restore the Balance of Power Between the 3 Branches of Government,” “Nominate Commonsense Constitutional Judges and Justices,” and, of course, “Pass a Constitutional Amendment Defining Marriage As Between One Man & One Woman.” I don’t know what those First Two Things mean, but I do know what the Last One means and I know that It will never happen, and that Mike Huckabee is bullshitting.

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http://www.salon.com/2015/06/29/gop_candidates_same_sex_marriage_test_whos_willing_to_be_honest_about_what_just_happened/