September 10, 2007
Thompson? We Say: Both Senile and Ignorant
Fred Thompson: senile or ignorant?
TV star and presidential candidate Fred Thompson spelled out his views on same-sex marriage over the weekend in a video posted to Salon.com. Judging by his take on the issue, the former Tennessee senator is terribly misinformed.
In the video, Thompson says he supports a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. “It would have two provisions,” he said. First, he would make sure that someone married in Massachusetts couldn’t move to his beloved state of Tennessee and demand equal rights. Thompson doesn’t seem to realize that the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress in 1996 and signed into law by President Clinton, renders such a provision unnecessary. In fact, some of the moderate members of Congress who helped defeat a federal amendment cited DOMA as a reason for their opposition.
The second provision of Thompson’s vision of a constitutional amendment is that no judge could impose gay marriage on a state. “There have been no state legislatures that have affirmatively allowed gay marriage in the United States.”
That’s an incredible statement coming from Thompson, who was in Los Angeles last week announcing his candidacy on the “Tonight Show” with Jay Leno and skipping a debate with his fellow Republican candidates. Given that he was in California just last week, you’d think he would have heard the news that the California Legislature approved a same-sex marriage bill — for the second time. …
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