James Dobson’s “Family Talk” radio program today once again featured a discussion between Mat Staver, Rick Scarborough, and Tim Wildmon about what anti-gay Christians should expect from an upcoming Supreme Court case on the constitutionality of state bans on gay marriage.
During today’s discussion, Staver repeatedly declared that marriage “is not a state’s rights issue” and so, if the arguments against anti-gay marriage win at the Supreme Court, then Religious Right activists will go to work outlawing gay marriage in states where it is currently legal.
Staver argued that, like slavery, the issue of marriage equality is something that cannot be left up to the individual states to decide and Dobson agreed, warning that allowing gay marriage in some states but not in others would lead to chaos.
When Wildmon noted that allowing the individual states to decide the issue for themselves was the best outcome that anti-gay activists could hope for from this Supreme Court case, Staver agreed, but said that if that happens, then they must get to work repealing marriage equality in the states where it already exists.
“The best thing we can hope for at that level is the Supreme Court says there is no constitutional right to same-sex marriage,” Staver said. “But now that work has to go down, after June, if we get that decision which I pray that we do, our work’s not done because we have to go back and undo the mess that the previous Supreme Court confusion has caused.”
Not only would they seek to reinstate bans in states where local or federal judges had struck them down, Staver said, but they would also work to repeal marriage equality laws passed by voters or legislatures in places like New York.
“This is such a fundamental issue, it is not a state’s rights issues any more than life is a state’s rights issue or slavery is a state’s rights issue,” Staver said. “Those issues are so fundamental they transcend geography.”
