[Vision2020] Palin Differs With McCain on Federal Marriage Amendment

[Saundra Lund]

I see:  reproductive rights and family planning are best decided by each
state, but we should amend the US Constitution to define and limit
marriages.  Of course, none of us who have been learning about Palin are
surprised given her theocratic leaning and her earlier-in-the-campaign
attempt to spin it otherwise.

Inconsistent?  You betcha!


Palin Differs With McCain on Federal Marriage Amendment
October 20, 2008 9:14 AM

ABC News' Imtiyaz Delawala Reports: Republican vice presidential nominee
Gov. Sarah Palin has signaled support for a federal marriage amendment
defining marriage as between a man and woman - a position inconsistent with
Sen. John McCain, who has opposed such a measure, as well as with her own
previously stated position of letting states decide on such issues. 

In an interview to air tomorrow on The 700 Club, Christian Broadcasting News
senior correspondent David Brody asked Palin, "On constitutional marriage
amendment, are, are you for something like that?"

"I am, in my own, state, I have voted along with the vast majority of
Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote to amend our Constitution defining
marriage as between one man and one woman," Palin said, citing the 1998
initiative that banned gay marriage in her home state.

"I wish on a federal level that that's where we would go because I don't
support gay marriage," Palin added, taking a position at odds with McCain,
who opposed efforts for a proposed Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004.
McCain opposes same-sex marriage, but says he believes the decision should
be left to individual states.

Palin's position is also at odds with statements she has made calling
herself a "federalist" who supports letting individual states decide on such
matters. 

When asked last month by CBS' Katie Couric why she considered Roe v. Wade a
bad decision, Palin said she believed states and not the federal government
should decide the legality of the issue.

"I think it should be a states' issue not a federal government-mandated,
mandating yes or no on such an important issue. I'm, in that sense, a
federalist, where I believe that states should have more say in the laws of
their lands and individual areas," Palin said. "And I believe that
individual states can best handle what the people within the different
constituencies in the 50 states would like to see their will ushered in an
issue like that."

McCain, who often calls himself a "federalist," has tied together his
opposition to Roe v. Wade as well as a Federal Marriage Amendment as
consistent with the position of letting states make such decisions.

"I'm a federalist. Just as I believe that the issue of gay marriage should
be decided by the states, so do I believe that we would be better off by
having Roe v. Wade return to the states," McCain said in an interview on
This Week with George Stephanopoulos in November 2006. "And I don't believe
the Supreme Court should be legislating in the way that they did on Roe v.
Wade."

As she has said in previous interviews, Palin told CBN's Brody that she
would not "judge" gay individuals, but said that she will continue "casting
my votes and speaking up for traditional marriage."

"I'm not going to be out there judging individuals, sitting in a seat of
judgment telling what they can and can't do, should and should not do,"
Palin told Brody. "But I certainly can express my own opinion here and take
actions that I believe would be best for traditional marriage, and that's
casting my votes and speaking up for traditional marriage that, that
instrument that it's the foundation of our society is that strong family and
that's based on that traditional definition of marriage, so I do support
that."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/palin-differs-w.html