If you are a journalist and you thought, for some reason, that Senator Rand Paul is a serious-minded politician, you haven't been paying attention to much of what he says or believes. After the court overturned DOMA Wednesday morning, he went on with Glenn Beck to kick around the ruling and made some rather crazy remarks on the subject of marriage. Beck went off on one of his usual tangents, which inspired Paul to say this:
Earlier today, for example, the senator appeared on Glenn Beck's show to discuss, among other things, the Supreme Court's ruling striking down the Defense of Marriage Act. The host suggested the ruling could lead to polygamy: "If you change one variable -- man and a woman to man and man, and woman and woman -- you cannot then tell me that you can't logically tell me you can't change the other variable -- one man, three women. Uh, one woman, four men.... If I'm a devout Muslim and I come over here and I have three wives, who are you to say if I'm an American citizen, that I can't have multiple marriages?"
For Paul, this seemed perfectly sensible. In fact, the senator went even further than Beck. Here's the entirety of Rand Paul's response, in which the senator said he's "kind of with" the unhinged host.
"I think this is the conundrum and gets back to what you were saying in the opening -- whether or not churches should decide this. But it is difficult because if we have no laws on this, people take it to one extension further. Does it have to be humans?
"You know, I mean, so there really are, the question is what social mores, can some social mores be part of legislation? Historically we did at the state legislative level, we did allow for some social mores to be part of it. Some of them were said to be for health reasons and otherwise, but I'm kind of with you, I see the thousands-of-year tradition of the nucleus of the family unit. I also see that economically, if you just look without any kind of moral periscope and you say, what is it that is the leading cause of poverty in our country? It's having kids without marriage. The stability of the marriage unit is enormous and we should not just say oh, we're punting on it, marriage can be anything."
Raise your hand if you think Rand Paul has any idea what he's talking about.
I realize there's a "Stand With Rand" crowd that's convinced the Kentucky Republican is a visionary when it comes to limited government, and I understand that much of the media establishment is eager for us to perceive him as a serious and credible person. But Rand Paul decided to chat with Glenn Beck, and during the interview the senator raised the prospect of marriage-equality proponents asking, "Does it have to be humans?"
If this is what constitutes an "interesting" politician and "rising star" in Republican politics, the GOP is in dire straits indeed.
Later on, Lil' Paul went on with Megyn Kelly of FOX News to try and explain his comments away by saying that the government has been involved in marriage for a long time and will still define marriage to a certain extent, so hardy-har-har, he was joking.
I think my point I was trying to make is that government has been involved in marriage for a while on the state level and I think if we leave it at the state level there will be room to disagree, but it will probably be in different parameters which like I said, I don't think it will be multiple humans and I think it will be human and human and so I didn't mean that to be anything other than I think that the government will still probably be involved in defining marriage to a certain aspect.
I don't think we're going on towards polygamy or things beyond that but I do think our country is divided on the issue and that in some ways the Supreme Court decision is probably going to allow us to agree to disagree. Some states like NY is going to go forward with gay marriage and some states you'll have in the south probably won't and not even in the foreseeable future. So I think we can agree to disagree.
He stumbles around just as much as he did with Glenn Beck. Apparently his beliefs are much closer to Rick 'man on dog' Santorum's than he would have you believe.
