Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) called for Floridians to “respect the rule of law” in response to news that the state would allow same sex couples to marry.
Bush’s statement came after a judge ruled on Monday that couples could immediately begin getting marriage licenses in the Miami-Dade County area with same sex marriage becoming legal throughout the state soon after.
Bush said he hoped that “we can show respect for the good people on all sides of the gay and lesbian marriage issue.”
As The New York Times noted, Bush’s remarks were far more sympathetic than the ones he gave on Sunday night when he said in a brief interview that “it ought to be a local decision. I mean a state decision.”
He added that “the state decided. The people of the state decided. But it’s been overturned by the courts, I guess.”
Here’s the full statement below:
We live in a democracy, and regardless of our disagreements, we have to respect the rule of law. I hope that we can show respect for the good people on all sides of the gay and lesbian marriage issue – including couples making lifetime commitments to each other who are seeking greater legal protections and those of us who believe marriage is a sacrament and want to safeguard religious liberty.
Brilliant! “it’s been overturned by the courts, I guess.”…WAY TO LEAD! Did you think of that all by yerself? Just wait until he has to do the GOTP primary dance on immigration…
In fairness to Jeb Bush, there really isn’t much difference between those two statements, and the statements are not necessarily inconsistent. The first statement sets forth his view that the matter should be left up to the individual states to resolve, and in the second statement he simply expresses his belief that we should respect the decision of the court, a decision with which he obviously does not agree. There will, I suspect, be lots of things in the coming months about which to criticize Jeb Bush, but these two statements aren’t it.
Feh. He’s figured out that the issue is nothing HE’s going to stick is face in, for sure.
I think he’s underestimating the level of crazy in his party’s base, though. Gay marriage isn’t an issue for those of us here in the real world, but he has to run the cray cray gamut first, and for a lot of them, gay equality is even worse than accepting Hispanics as equals.
Jeb Bush Wobbles
Does that make him a Weeble ?
How long before we realize that GWB is the smarter one? And GWB is god-awfully stupid.