GOP Congressman: Same-Sex Marriage Harms The Economy

One Republican U.S. Congressman has no problem peddling blatant falsehoods about same-sex marriage – ones easily disproven.

Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp spent some time with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins Thursday to spread a few falsehoods about same-sex marriage. The Kansas conservative suggested that same-sex marriage harms the economy, children, and society, none of which are true.

Claiming that America’s founding fathers didn’t define marriage as between one man and one woman because they “never envisioned a society that would reject a basic understanding of nature,” Huelskamp told Perkins “there is no right written in the Constitution to marry whomever or however many you want.” Linking same-sex marriage with polygamy is often a default attack by conservatives, and there are countless laws that are both legal and constitutional that aren’t specifically mentioned in the Constitution, obviously.

Huelskamp has been pushing an amendment to the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage throughout the nation for years. It reads:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.

He is now using his Marriage Protection Amendment, which he re-introduced yesterday, as a tool to “plant the flag in the ground” for one-man, one-woman marriage. That flag also serves to help line his campaign war-chest by sending his anti-gay message to his supporters.

“This is National Marriage Week,” the 46-year old Kansas Roman Catholic said. “What a better time to call your member of Congress, your Senator and say, ‘Hey, what are you doing to protect marriage? What are you doing to protect our children and our economic well-being?’,” as if, somehow, same-sex marriage threatens different-sex marriage. It does not.

Huelskamp went on to attack the intelligence of American citizens, saying that because gay people are gaining the legal right to marry, “folks are confused about what a marriage is.” Of course, any person you ask on the street will have a pretty solid understanding of “what a marriage is.” Just ask them.

He went on to say that marriage is “good for our children, it’s good for our culture, it’s good for our economic health.”

If “we don’t protect the traditional basis for marriage,” Huelskamp continued, “it harms everyone, particularly our young children.” Rep. Huelskamp did not explain if different-sex marriage is good for children, culture, and society, how same-sex marriage could harm children, culture, and society.

“At the end of the day,” Huelskamp said, “it’s children that are hurt.”

Perhaps the Congressman would like to tell these children just how they are being “hurt”?

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr
Hat tip and videos: Right Wing Watch