In recent comments, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) stated that the United States Supreme Court’s Landmark ruling which resulted in the legalization of same-sex marriage across the nation was “clearly wrong” but made sure to stress the idea that he did not think that the justices currently had any “appetite” to look over the case and stated it would be quite “chaotic” to try and disrupt the unions that have gone into effect in accordance with the law.
This Friday while speaking on “The Verdict,” his podcast, both Cruz and his co-host Liz Wheeler spoke about Obergefell v. Hodges — which was the case from 2015 that officially ruled that all states were banned from stopping same-sex marriage — as it compared to the recently overturned Roe v. Wade. Wheeled then told Cruz to pretend for example that he was an advocate of the Court and try to explain the overall vulnerability of Obergefell and what efforts it would take to overturn that particular precedent.
“Obergefell, like Roe v. Wade, ignored two centuries of our nation’s history,” Cruz explained to Wheeler. “Marriage was always an issue that was left to the states. We saw states before Obergefell, some states were moving to allow gay marriage, and other states were moving to allow civil partnerships. There were different standards that the states were adopting.”
In the case of Obergefell, the court came to a ruling of 5-4 which means that state laws seeking to ban same-sex marriage were entirely unconstitutional under due process and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“And had the Court not ruled in Obergefell, the democratic process would have continued to operate; if you believed gay marriage was a good idea, the way the Constitution set up for you to advance that position is to convince your fellow citizens,” explained Cruz. “And if you succeeded in convincing your fellow citizens, then your state would change the laws to reflect those views. In Obergefell, the Court said, ‘No, we know better than you guys do and now every state … must sanction and permit gay marriage.'”
Cruz then went on to explain that he thought that the court was “overreaching” with that decision, but that it was a “fundamentally” different question than that of abortion.
“I think that decision was clearly wrong when it was decided,” expressed Cruz about same-sex marriage. “It was the court overreaching.”
Back in June, SCOTUS emphasized in its decision from Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which led to the eventual overturning of Roe, that the abortion issue is not at all the same as marriage.
“… so in Dobbs, what the Supreme Court said is Roe is different because it’s the only one of the cases that involve the taking of a human life and that’s qualitatively different” than Obergefell, he expressed.
“I agree with that proposition,” stated Cruz.
Seemingly in reaction to an edited down clip of his answer, quite a few leftists such as Ron Filipkowski made the claim that Cruz was wanting the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell in its entirety. As pointed out by Steve Guest, Cruz’s senior communications advisor, the comments from Cruz with their full context shows otherwise.
Guest stated, “Noticed you only clipped 18 seconds,” while issuing a link to the longer, more complete video of Cruz’s response.
Noticed you only clipped 18 seconds.
Here's Sen. Cruz's full comments: "You've got a ton of people who have entered into gay marriages & it would be more than a little chaotic for the court to do something that somehow disrupted those marriages…" https://t.co/O0IbB8ztPr pic.twitter.com/c0khF0N4hW
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) July 17, 2022
Cruz clarified, “When a court is deciding, is considering, whether to overturn a precedent, one of the factors that the court looks to is reliance interests — have people relied on the previous precedent and acted accordingly.”
“And in the context of marriage, you’ve got a ton of people who have entered into gay marriages and it would be more than a little chaotic for the Court to do something that somehow disrupted those marriages that have been entered into in accordance with the law,” he explained. “I think that would be a factor that would … counsel restraint, that the Court would be concerned about.”
Cruz stated to WHeeler that while Justice Clarence Thomas may have stated the Court should look over the cases, he held no belief that the court actually would.
“But to be honest, I don’t think this Court has any appetite for overturning any of these decisions,” he stated.