« Go back a post || Return to G-A-Y homepage || Haul tail to next post »
02/27/2013
Marilyn Musgrave now opposes Prop 8? Wait, what? WHAT?!?!? (**UPDATED! Musgrave denies it all)
Marilyn Musgrave was like the Maggie Gallagher of Congress. She was the co-sponsor of the so-called Federal Marriage Amendment and claimed marriage equality to be "antithetical to our national character." The former congresswoman (who was once ranked as the House's most conservative member) spent part of 2012 on a bus with the aforementioned Gallagher (seen at left) encouraging voters to support Rick Santorum precisely because of his stances on things like marriage.
Folks, this is a truly shocking development. The New York Times reports:
More than two dozen Republicans — including a top adviser to Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, and a former congresswoman who made banning same-sex marriage her signature issue — have added their names to a legal brief urging the Supreme Court to declare that gay couples have a constitutional right to wed.
...
The list of Republicans on the brief now tallies more 100, organizers say. It now includes Beth Myers, who ran Mr. Romney’s 2008 campaign and was a senior adviser to him in 2012, and Marilyn Musgrave, a retired Colorado congresswoman who was once rated the most conservative member of the House by the American Conservative Union.
Ms. Musgrave, who lost her bid for a fourth term in 2008, was an unsuccessful sponsor of a constitutional amendment to bar same-sex couples from marrying; she once warned that if gay couples were allowed to wed, “the next step is polygamy or group marriage.”
FULL REPORT: Brief Supporting Same-Sex Marriage Gets More Republican Support [NYT]
Not to belabor the point, but I cannot reinforce how shocking this is. Marilyn Musgrave was a Concerned Women For America poster child (CWA audio clip at link). She was (and presumably still is) to the right of Phyllis Schlafly on most political matters. If you had asked me yesterday morning to name an American likely to come out for marriage equality, Ms. Musgrave would've ranked somewhere below a cryogenically frozen version of Ronald Reagan. And now this!? This is not some weird dream?!
Turns out the social conservatives can still shock me. Who knew?
*Musgrave speaking to the Family Research Council in 2006:
"If we have gay marriage, our religious liberties are gone."
**MAJOR UPDATE: Marilyn Musgrave denies NYT report; says she hasn't changed marriage position [G-A-Y]
Your thoughts
comments powered by Disqus
