The next Republican presidential candidate could very well be in favor of same-sex marriage, said GOP strategist Karl Rove, during an interview on ABC.
Mr. Rove was responding to a question from “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos: “Can you imagine the next presidential campaign a Republican candidate saying flat out, ’I am for gay marriage?’ “
Mr. Rove: “I could,” he said.
Top Republican contenders for 2016 include Sen. Rand Paul — who just won The Washington Times-CPAC straw poll — and Sen. Marco Rubio.
During an interview with Fox News, Mr. Paul said over the weekend that gay marriage was “really a complicated issue” that “the states have the right to decide.” He also added: “I do believe in traditional marriage. Kentucky’s decided it, and I don’t think the federal government should tell us otherwise. There are states that have decided in the opposite direction, and I don’t think the federal government should tell anybody or any state government how they should decide this.”
USA Today quoted Mr. Rubio’s staffers in June 2012 as saying the senator “believes that the union of one man and one woman is the ideal setting to raise a strong family and why our laws should recognized the institution of marriage as a union of one man and one woman.” The story also quoted Mr. Rubio in previous interviews as calling characterizing the gay marriage debate “about what society should tolerate, and what society should allow our laws to be.”
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• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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