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| Photo Credit: AP. |
Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz said Saturday that the Supreme Court was “clearly wrong” when it decided in a historic ruling in 2015 that same sex marriage was legal under the country’s constitution, Newsweek reports.
The Supreme
Court decided the Obergefell v. Hudges landmark LGBTQ rights case in a 5 to 4
ruling affirming the rights of gay people to get married. The ruling also made
it illegal for any state, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories to
deny a marriage certificate to same-sex couples, citing the Due Process Clause
and the Equal Protection Cause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution,
Newsweek reported.
Cruz who
spoke in a video uploaded to YouTube from his Verdict+ podcast on Saturday,
described the “vulnerability” of the Obergefell ruling arguing that the ruling
was not correctly decided.
"Obergefell,
like Roe v. Wade, ignored two centuries of our nation's history," the
senator argued in the clip from his podcast. "Marriage was always an issue
that was left to the states. We saw states before Obergefell—some states were
moving to allow gay marriage, other states were moving to allow civil
partnerships. There were different standards that the states were adopting,"
according to Newsweek.
Newsweek
reported that Cruz said "democratic process would have continued to
operate" if the Supreme Court had not ruled the way it did. "In
Obergefell the Court said, 'no, we know better than you,' and now every state
must sanction and permit gay marriage," he said.
"That decision was clearly wrong when it was decided," Cruz said, complaining that the Court was "overreaching."
The GOP senator then pointed out however, that the Supreme Court's ruling overturning Roe suggested that same-sex marriage will be treated differently.
Cruz agreed
with the Supreme same sex marriage will be treated differently.
"In
Dobbs, what the Supreme Court said is 'Roe is different because it's the only
one of the cases that involves the taking of a human life and it's
qualitatively different,'" he explained. "I agree with that
proposition," he said/
The GOP
senator has been a vocal critic of same sex marriage. He told NPR after the 2015
ruling that states not involved in the specific lawsuit should disregard the
ruling.
"Those
who are not parties to the suit are not bound by it," he said, adding that
he was opposed to gay marriage “front and center”, according to Newsweek.