Jeb Bush: Gay Marriage Should Be State Decision, but ‘Courts Overturned It, I Guess’

Twenty-four hours in advance of a court deadline ordering clerks in at least one county to issue same-sex marriage licenses, former Sunshine State Governor and putative 2016 GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush shrugged his shoulders at the decision.

“It ought be a local decision. I mean, a state decision,” Bush told the Miami Herald. “The state decided. The people of the state decided. But it’s been overturned by the courts, I guess.”

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle declared the state’s 2008 same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, but stayed the ruling’s implementation. Advocacy groups are at odds over whether the ruling compels clerks in only Washington County or the whole state to issue licenses.

Bush has stated his opposition to same-sex marriage before, while maintaining it should be a state issue. But in 2013 he told Charlie Rose, “I don’t think people need to be discriminated against because they don’t share my belief on this, and if people love their children with all their heart and soul and that’s what they do and that’s how they organize their life that should be held up as examples for others to follow because we need it.”

Bush announced last month that he was openly considering a run for president, putting him under more pressure to articulate policy positions on issues potential troublesome for the conservative GOP base.

[h/t Miami Herald]
[image via Gage Skidmore]

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