5 Republicans who sound just like the white supremacist group fighting marriage equality in Michigan

Turns out that members of the GOP and white nationalists both think equal marriage will lead to bestiality

Published April 1, 2014 8:01PM (EDT)

Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee                          (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque/Joe Skipper)
Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque/Joe Skipper)

Michigan is currently fighting to reverse a court ruling legalizing marriage equality in the state, and attorney general Bill Schuette has a new ally in his opposition to equal rights for gay couples -- white nationalists.

The Traditionalist Youth Network submitted an amicus brief last week in support of the state's appeal of the equal marriage ruling, but Schuette quickly denounced the brief and said that, "There is no place in this discussion for derogatory language, and anything like it will be completely disregarded by the Department of Attorney General." But when you read the brief, it becomes abundantly clear that the this group of white nationalists is advancing the same claims about the "slippery slope" that other anti-LBGTQ politicians have been arguing for years.

Here are a few of the points that the group argued in the brief:

For the United States, its anti-sodomy laws throughout its existence have been in accordance with Western history. Not surprisingly, until 1961 A.D., all fifty American states outlawed sodomy. [...] Even some of our nation’s Founding Fathers viewed sodomy to be repugnant and warranting punishment.

If a state cannot be permitted to define marriage as simply as constituting one man and one woman, then our culture will be taken down a very slippery slope that will see pedophiles, polygamists, zoophiles, those in incestuous relationships, and every other sexual deviant with proclivities now known or to be invented to challenge laws that, likewise, prevent them from marrying whom or what they wish. [...]

Whereas sodomy was abhorred throughout Western and American history and was permitted to be criminalized from time immemorial until Bowers v. Hardwick was reversed roughly a decade ago per Lawrence v. Texas, it is now so chic that its activists have been able to convince learned jurists to normalize it by ordering that those who practice sodomy be permitted to marry one another.

And here are five politicians who have said exactly the same things:

Mike Huckabee, 2010

"That would be like saying, well there's there are a lot of people who like to use drugs so let's go ahead and accommodate those who want to use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, should we accommodate them? Why do you get to choose that two men are OK but one man and three women aren't OK?"

Rick Santorum, 2003 

“If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does.”

Rand Paul, 2013

"It is difficult, because if we have no laws on this, people will take it to one extension further  -- does it have to be humans?" (Paul defended his comment as "sarcasm.")

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, 2013

"[Comparing marriage equality to marriages between children was an] inappropriate analogy, you know. I think a much better analogy would have been brother and sister, don't you?"

Louie Gohmert, 2013

"In fact, I had this discussion with some wonderful, caring Democrats earlier this week on the issue of, well, they said 'surely you could agree to limit the number of rounds in a magazine, couldn't you? How would that be problematic?'

And I pointed out, well, once you make it ten, then why would you draw the line at ten? What's wrong with nine? Or eleven? And the problem is once you draw that limit; it's kind of like marriage when you say it's not a man and a woman any more, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal?

There is no clear place to draw the line once you eliminate the traditional marriage and it's the same once you start putting limits on what guns can be used, then it's just really easy to have laws that make them all illegal."

 


By Katie McDonough

Katie McDonough is Salon's politics writer, focusing on gender, sexuality and reproductive justice. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com.

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Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Equal Marriage Homophobia Marriage Equality Racism White Nationalists