Appearing on CNN’s State Of The Union today alongside Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spoke to host Dana Bash, and said that marriage equality should be recognized on a state-by-state basis, de facto endorsing the overturning of the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision by SCOTUS even though he claimed that he didn’t think it would get overturned.
His party just welcomed Viktor Orban, the right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister who came out against "race mixing" to CPAC as a guest speaker, but South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham wants us to believe his party won't try to overturn interracial marriage once they're done criminalizing abortion, overturning same-sex marriage and turning the United States into a theocracy.
Here's Graham on this Sunday's State of the Union on CNN responding to Dana Bash asking him if the 2015 Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage should be overturned.
John Bowden at The Independent, via Yahoo! News:
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham fed the fears of Democrats and the left in general on Sunday during an interview on CNN in which he argued for the end of federal protections for gay marriage rights.
The South Carolina senator appeared on State of the Union aside Sen Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, for a rare bipartisan interview/debate. The conversation took place as the Senate continued a marathon “vote-a-rama” session that began Saturday afternoon and was still chugging along approaching noon on Sunday.
At one point in the interview, Mr Graham made clear that the conservative supermajority within SCOTUS could overturn other precedents like the Obergefell v Hodges case, which during the Obama administration nullified state laws banning same-sex marriage.
Asked directly if he was saying it should be overturned, Mr Graham said “no, I’m saying that I don’t think it’s going to be overturned,” he said, though his voice clearly left open the idea that it could be.
“Nor should it be?” asked CNN’s Dana Bash.
“Well, that would be up to the Court,” he responded, before adding: “I think states should decide the issue of marriage.”
Asked by Bash on whether the states should decide whether interracial marriage should be decided by the state, Graham dismissed it as a “distraction.”
MeidasTouch rightly explains that the Republican platform will be coming for all of your rights:
Dear Sen. Lindsey Graham: You are de facto calling for federal marriage equality to be overturned that was granted with Obergefell with your reckless “return it to the states” argument, and based on what we have seen in the aftermath of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision regarding abortion policies varying by state, it’ll be even more of a patchwork mess between the states should Obergefell go down.
This is a reminder that the GOP and the far-right ultra-MAGA majority on SCOTUS will be going full hog on overturning every right under the sun, such as contraception, birth control, LGBTQ+ rights as a whole, freedom of the press, and 1st Amendment protections, in addition to abortion access.