Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, struggling to retain his number-two ranking in the 2024 GOP presidential primary race, framed supporters of same-sex marriage as a threat to America’s religious institutions, and to the sacraments of Christian churches.
“You have previously said that the definition of marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman. I’m curious, is that still how you feel today?” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Gov. DeSantis at the network’s town hall in Iowa Thursday night.
“So that’s just what marriage is with the church,” responded DeSantis, who is known for his anti-LGBTQ “Don’t Say Gay” legislation.
“And I respect the Supreme Court’s decision,” he continued, referring to the 2015 ruling that found the U.S. Constitution provides the same rights and responsibilities to marriage for same-sex couples as for different-sex couples. “We’ve abided by that in Florida even though our constitution defines it as between a man and a woman.”
But the Florida governor quickly pivoted to suggesting that somehow the seven out of ten Americans (71%) who support same-sex marriage, according to Gallup, are somehow a threat to religion.
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“I think what we need to recognize is you are going to have people try to wield power against our religious institutions, and try to marginalize them simply by upholding the biblical definition of marriage,” DeSantis declared, echoing far-right extremists who for decades have predicted that same-sex couples marrying would somehow destroy “traditional” marriages and societal institutions, none of which have happened in the more than eight years since that Supreme Court ruling.
Even GOP voters are near-evenly split on support for same-sex marriage, but DeSantis pivoted to their right.
“Republican support for gay marriage has hovered around the 50% mark since 2020,” Gallup noted in its most recent report, June of 2023, “with slight majorities backing it in 2021 and 2022. The latest 49% recorded for this group is statistically similar to the level of support Gallup has recorded in recent years.”
The Florida governor, who the Human Rights Campaign says “has made LGBTQ+ people political pawns in his own quest for power,” vowed he would “protect those religious institutions to be able to do what has always been done in terms of how they consider marriage as a sacrament.”
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“So in terms of the church, that’s just what it is. Now, in terms of the Supreme Court’s decision with civil law, you know, the state, we had a different policy, this is before I was governor, and so the State of Florida’s respected that.”
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