Rand Paul pretends to be a good libertarian/Republican kinda guy who isn’t cast from the same mold as some of his more conservative friends and colleagues. But when you flat out ask him a question about marriage rights for the LGBT community, he shows his true colors.
During an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Senator Paul was confronted with a line he had recently used in New Hampshire in which he said he would “fight for your right to be left alone.” Bash took that line and ran with it, asking Paul:
“Why do you believe — just as a core principle as a libertarian — that people should be left alone, but not when it comes to their right to marry someone they love?”
Paul responded with this recitation of the libertarian motto which must have pleased many of his younger supporters:
“I do believe people ought to be left alone. I don’t care who you are, what you do at home or who your friends are, where you hang out, what kind of music you listen to. What you do in your home is your own business. That’s always been who I am. I am a leave-me-alone kind of guy.”
But Bash was persistent, and retorted with this reminder:
“But not when it comes to marriage.”
To which the Kentucky Senator offered a word salad of pablum that must have left his campaign manager cringing:
“Well, no, the states will end up making the decisions on these things. I think there’s a religious connotation to this. I also believe people ought to be treated fairly under the law. I see why if the marriage contract conveys certain things, that if you want to marry another woman, you can do that and have a contract. But the thing is that the religious connotation of marriage that has been going on for thousands of years, I still want to preserve that.”
So you’re a leave-me-alone kind of guy, but not if that means leaving people alone to marry who they choose. In that case, you want to maintain the status quo and “traditional marriage.” How exactly is that any different from what all the other intolerant members of your party believe on the issue?
Paul then speculated out loud that he thought you could have two mutually exclusive opinions on the same issue:
“And you probably could have both. You could have both the traditional marriage, which I believe in and then you could also have the neutrality of the law that allows people to have contracts with another.”
Fortunately for the entire nation, Rand Paul will not make the final decision on same-sex marriage. That will be taken care of by the Supreme Court, and I’m pretty sure they won’t try to have it both ways like the Senator.
Watch Rand Paul Waffle On Same-Sex Marriage:
This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org.