CNN’s S.E. Cupp to Ralph Reed: Why Won’t GOP Make Conservative Case for Gay Marriage?
Prompted by the escalating Cheney family feud, Crossfire co-host and conservative S.E. Cupp battled Faith and Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed on Tuesday night over gay marriage, saying that she could make a conservative case that the Republican Party should embrace the cause of gay marriage, an argument Reed found wholly unpersuasive.
“Isn’t it time that your wing of the Republican Party accept and embrace good Republicans like the Log Cabin Republicans, like GOProud, like Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), like Rob Portman (R-OH)?” Cupp asked. “Don’t you think it’s time to recognize that in some ways the tide is turning, that we should be more inclusive of these values, without having to change our personal opinions of them?”
“If the tide had truly turned, then you wouldn’t have thirty-six states and 70% of the American people defining it as a man and a woman, and you wouldn’t need the courts to impose it,” Reed said. “The same Millennials who today are more inclined to support same-sex marriage and are also more pro-life than their parents were. So the country became more pro-choice in the 70s and 80s and in the 90s and the last ten years became more pro-life. Just because something is moving in a particular direction, it’s an analytical error to assume it’s going to continue in that trend.”
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“To me, it seems like a conservative principle,” Cupp said. “Why are we offering tax breaks to one set of people, and not to another set of people? Why are we privileging marriage, this institution conservatives absolutely love, for these people and not these people? Why are we celebrating family and not another kind of family? If we hate abortion so much, shouldn’t we be supporting the right of adoption, for any two loving people to adopt babies that are unwanted?”
“There’s a compelling state interest in those monogamous unions that are the best for children,” Reed replied. “The social science on this is clear, and to treat other relationships as on par with that is just not accurate.”
Co-host Van Jones interjected to say that it was heterosexuals, with their high divorce rates, who were “ruining marriage,” a point with which Reed agreed.
“You know who’s making marriage cool again?” Jones asked. “It’s the lesbians and gays who have fought for it, who have stood for it, who have made it a cause for a generation.”
Watch the full clip below, via CNN:
[Image via screengrab]
