Guthrie Grills Cruz On Difference Between Gay And Interracial Marriage

[DonViejo]

After Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said he would support Texas county clerks' ability to deny marriage licenses to gay couples on religious grounds, "Today Show" co-host Savannah Guthrie pressed the presidential candidate on the difference between gay marriage and interracial marriage.

"If a state clerk refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple, would you agree with that too?" she asked Cruz on Monday morning, noting that people who once objected to interracial marriage used religion to support their beliefs.

"There’s no religious backing for that," Cruz responded.

Guthrie then asked Cruz whether interracial marriage should be a state issue, even though the Supreme Court ruled that interracial marriage bans are unconstitutional.

"Of course not,' Cruz answered. "We fought a bloody civil war over the original sin of our country, that was slavery. Slavery was grotesque and immoral and some 600,000 Americans lost their lives, spilled their blood on American soil to expunge it."

more + video
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-today-show-interracial-marriage

[Kber]

1. Did Cruz just admit that the Civil War was fought over slavery

He just went off script in a pretty big way!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Back in the bad old days, religion WAS used as the basis

for objecting to interracial marriage and other forms of racism. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/26/3333161/religious-liberty-racist-anti-gay/

Bob Jones University excluded African Americans completely until the early 1970s, when it began permitting black students to attend so long as they were married. In 1975, it amended this policy to permit unmarried African American students, but it continued to prohibit interracial dating, interracial marriage, or even being “affiliated with any group or organization which holds as one of its goals or advocates interracial marriage.” As a result, the Internal Revenue Service revoked Bob Jones’ tax-exempt status.

This decision, that the IRS would no longer give tax subsidies to racist schools even if they claimed that their racism was rooted in religious beliefs, quickly became a rallying point for the Christian Right. Indeed, according to Paul Weyrich, the seminal conservative activist who coined the term “moral majority,” the IRS’ move against schools like Bob Jones was the single most important issue driving the birth of modern day religious conservatism. According to Weyrich, “it was not the school-prayer issue, and it was not the abortion issue,” that caused this “movement to surface.” Rather it was what Weyrich labeled the “federal government’s move against the Christian schools.”

When Bob Jones’ case reached the Supreme Court, the school argued that IRS’ regulations denying tax exemptions to racist institutions “cannot constitutionally be applied to schools that engage in racial discrimination on the basis of sincerely held religious beliefs.” But the justices did not bite. In an 8-1 decision by conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger, the Court explained that “[o]n occasion this Court has found certain governmental interests so compelling as to allow even regulations prohibiting religiously based conduct.” Prohibiting race discrimination is one of these interests.

[DonViejo]

3. It still is opposed by some Evangelicals....

Opposition to Interracial Marriage Lingers Among Evangelicals

http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2011/june/opposition-to-interracial-marriage-lingers-among.html