Jeb Bush: Same-sex marriage should be up to states to decide
Republican Jeb Bush has claimed that same-sex marriage should be left to states to decide.
The politician – the second son of former President George Bush, and brother of President George W Bush – is rumoured to be building up to a Presidential run in 2016.
He made the comments as Florida clerks prepare to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses, when a court decision overturning the ban comes into effect.
The former Governor of Florida told the Miami Herald: “It ought be a local decision. I mean, a state decision. The state decided.
“The people of the state decided. But it’s been overturned by the courts, I guess.”
Howard Simon of the Florida branch of the American Civil Liberties Union retorted: “So the people should have the right to enact a discriminatory law?
“That sounds like what he was saying. That unfortunately is consistent from what I remember about Jeb Bush’s tenure as governor.”
Jeb Bush branded same-sex marriage “a distraction” during the 2012 presidential campaign.
He said at the time: “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 organise their life that should be held up as examples for others to follow because we need it.
“We desperately need it and that can take all sorts of forms. It doesn’t have to take the one that I think should be sanctioned under the law.”
