Ted Yoho, Anti-Gay Group Spox Blame Democrats For LGBT Rights ‘Distraction’

When the Family Research Council’s Craig James was guest-hosting the organization’s “Washington Watch” program last night, an interview with Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., inevitably turned toward the upcoming Supreme Court arguments on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans.

Remarkably, James, whose group lives and breathes opposition to LGBT rights, blamed liberals for pushing marriage equality in order to distract voters “away from reality.”

Yoho, a staunch opponent of marriage equality, declared that if politicians focused on issues like the national debt and immigration, “these smaller things” like marriage equality “will solve themselves.”

“Here we are in the 21st century redefining an institution that has been around for thousands of years,” Yoho said in response to a question from a listener about the impact of a potential Supreme Court decision, “And we’re spending time — and I’m not saying it’s important not to have those discussions —but we’ve got $18.2 trillion [in debt], we’ve got a broken foreign policy, we’ve got immigration that doesn’t work and so we need to start fixing the major things and I think a lot of these smaller things that are important to people they will solve themselves.”

James, apparently forgetting that his boss at the Family Research Council has warned that a ruling in favor of gay marriage will lead to a revolution, called the whole debate on marriage a Democratic-manufactured distraction “away from reality.”

“It’s a distraction of the 10th degree,” Yoho said. “We’re getting this stuff thrown at us and we really need to start focusing on major issues.”