WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz is joining a multitude of conservatives in continuing to say the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage was wrong and an overreach, stoking concerns that the reversal of Roe v. Wade could impact other past decisions.
In a clip posted to his podcast YouTube channel Saturday, the Texas Republican discussed the “vulnerability” of the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling with conservative commentator Liz Wheeler.
“Obergefell, like Roe vs. Wade, ignored two centuries of our nation’s history,” Cruz said in the clip. “Marriage was always an issue that was left to the states.”
Before the decision, 37 states and Washington, D.C., had legalized same-sex marriages while Texas and nine other states had constitutional provisions that barred recognition of the unions.
Cruz argued it should have remained for the states to decide.
“In Obergefell, the court said, ‘No, we know better than you guys do, and now every state must, must sanction and permit gay marriage,’” Cruz said in the clip.
This is not Cruz’s first time speaking out against the ruling. Shortly after the decision to federally legalize same-sex marriage, Cruz described it as “the very definition of lawlessness,” and called it an instance of “naked and shameless acts of judicial activism.”
He went so far as proposing a constitutional amendment allowing for judicial retention elections, which would allow Americans to vote whether to retain a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court every eight years after their appointment.
Cruz’s most recent comments come weeks after the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe, which removed a constitutional protection for abortion. Following the decision LGBTQ rights activists have expressed concern that same-sex protections might be targeted or reduced next.
In a previous interview with The Dallas Morning News, Jonathan Mitchell, known as the architect of Texas Senate Bill 8, indicated that he was shifting his legal focus to same-sex marriage.
While in the court’s majority opinion Justice Samuel Alito wrote the decision focused solely on the right to abortion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a separate opinion that the court should reconsider decisions striking down state restrictions on same-sex marriage, sodomy and contraceptives.
In the interview with Wheeler, Cruz said he thinks the current Supreme Court, apart from Thomas, does not have an appetite to overturn decisions on same-sex marriage. He said one factor preventing justices from doing this is the reliance Americans have had on the precedent.
“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 had been entered into in accordance with the law,” Cruz said in the clip.
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