Louie Gohmert proposes banishing gays to an island to prove same-sex marriage is unnatural

Tea Partyer calls for island isolation study to see "what nature dictates should be a marriage":

By Sophia Tesfaye

Senior Politics Editor

Published July 29, 2015 9:40PM (EDT)

Louie Gohmert                         (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Louie Gohmert (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Texas Tea Party Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert continues to fight a lost war against marriage equality. Instead of packing it up, the lawmaker's most recent attack on same-sex marriage is a proposal to isolate gay couples on an island in order to prove which "nature says is the preferred marriage."

Right-Wing Watch captured Gohmert speaking at Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum college confab in Washington D.C. (yes, the nonagenarian conservative icon has her fingers on the pulse of millennial right-wingers), where he railed against the Supreme Court decision overturning bans against same-sex marriage. Gohmert complained about the lack of impartiality on the bench before calling for the impeachment of Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both of whom had officiated same-sex weddings.

Gohmert complained that the Court had turned its back on the teachings Moses, Jesus and God had on marriage when they ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. Gohmert suggested a plan to outsmart the Supreme Court and to prove "what nature dictates should be a marriage":

I think we could do a study. We are good at funding studies. We could take four heterosexual couples, married, and put them on an island where they have everything they need to sustain life. Then take four all-male couples and put them on an island with all they need to sustain life, take four couples of women, married, and put them on an island, and let’s come back in 100 to 200 years and see which one nature says is the preferred marriage. Which one still is doing great and doing well. And I think we'll have our answer.

Of course, none of this is new from the outlandish Republican. Earlier this month, Gohmert appeared on C-SPAN to make the exact same proposal, saying, "maybe we could have a government survey, spend billions of dollars and study this":


By Sophia Tesfaye

Sophia Tesfaye is Salon's senior editor for news and politics, and resides in Washington, D.C. You can find her on Twitter at @SophiaTesfaye.

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