AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Saturday criticized the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling that legalized gay marriage, on an episode of his own podcast, as first reported by NBC News.
“Marriage was always an issue that was left to the states. We saw states before Obergefell—some states were moving to allow gay marriage, other states were moving to allow civil partnerships. There were different standards that the states were adopting,” Cruz said, referring to the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision. “I think that decision was clearly wrong when it was decided. It was the court overreaching.”
In the tradition of many right-wing arguments about civil rights, Cruz tried to fashion it into one about states rights saying, “The way the Constitution set up for you to advance that position is to convince your fellow citizens that if you succeeded in convincing your fellow citizens, then your state would change the laws to reflect those views. In Obergefell, the court said now we know better than you guys do, and now every state must, must sanction and permit gay marriage.”
While Cruz has repeatedly said versions of this for years, the timing of this one is a little bit different.
Following the reversal of Roe v. Wade, it’s clear that Cruz isn’t emptily raising the specter for things he and the GOP will never follow up on. As my colleague Pema Levy recently wrote, Clarence Thomas has made a clear case in his writings how a rollback of rights would advance.
Cruz echoing this is proof of the seriousness of the threat.
