Rubio: Obama LGBT Executive Orders Are Forcing Gov’t Contractors To ‘Sin’ So I Will Reverse Them

Marco Rubio came out swinging at the LGBT community in an interview where he also slammed the Supreme Court’s marriage ruling.

Staunch right wing conservative Catholic Marco Rubio says protecting LGBT people from discrimination forces Christians to “sin,” so as President he would reverse President Barack Obama‘s policies. President Obama has signed several executive orders mandating that government contractors not discriminate against LGBT people, thus preventing corporations or organizations that choose to do business with the federal government from refusing to hire LGBT people, or firing them because they are LGBT.

“There’s no doubt that we need to be extra vigilant now about protecting the religious liberties of Americans and that includes having a justice department that’s vigilant about ensuring that those who hold traditional values are not being discriminated against,” Rubio told Christian Broadcasting Network reporter David Brody last week in the video above that was just published Saturday. The Florida GOP Senator seemed to be concerned only with the religious liberties and traditional values of Christians, not people of other faiths, or of no faith. 

“That includes reversing any administrative decisions made by this President that force religious, or religious motivated entities. You may not be owned by a church, but you are a religious school, or your mission is to spread the Gospel and adhere to God’s teachings ensure that people in the private sector and the not-for-profit sector are being protected in living out their faith.”

In other words, a President Rubio would give anti-LGBT religious businesses special rights.

Rubio singled out LGBT people, and transgender people in particular, stating he would “reverse the executive orders the President has made on things like gender equality in restrooms.”

“You’ve seen some local districts and others been forced to, you know, provide girls access to a boys’ bathroom and so forth. These sorts of things you’ve seen in Illinois for example, but also ensure that we’re not doing anything that at any part in our government that is putting organizations that are motivated by their faith or organized around their faith from having to violate the tenants of their faith and that includes government contractors. There are many government contractors and small companies who provide services to the government who are faith-based people, and they are, they are being compelled to sin by government in their business conduct. That is not something we should be supporting,” the Florida Republican who is enjoying a jump in the presidential race polls said.

In addition to ensuring that religious organizations and even major corporations, like Hobby Lobby, for example, be allowed to discriminate against LGBT people specifically, Rubio would go even farther by ensuring the Supreme Court would be comprised of people who hold Justice Antonin Scalia’s obscure vision that the Constitution is not a living document, but a text that is to be applied as written and under the same mindsets as when it was written.

Saying “one of the biggest things the next President is going to do is appoint justices to the Supreme Court,” Rubio stressed those justices must share his view and “understand that the Constitution is not a living and breathing document. It is a document of limitation and it’s supposed to be interpreted and applied based on its original intent.”

He also slammed the Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, and its June decision in Obergefell, claiming “there is no way that you can read that Constitution and deduce from it that there is constitutional right to an abortion, or a constitutional right to marry someone of the same sex.”

Rubio stopped short of applying a litmus test, but slammed the five majority Supreme Court justices who, he said, “wanted to reach a certain policy outcome and so creatively manipulated the Constitution to discover a right that for over two centuries, some of the most brilliant minds and legal history didn’t find. So you need judges that understand how constitutionally flawed that those two kinds of rulings and others have been and that’s what the most important thing the next President will do is appoint Supreme court Justices that actually will apply the constitution irrespective of their personal feelings about the issue.”

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license
Hat tip: Chris Johnson/Washington Blade
Video: CBN News/The Brody File