(CNN) - Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback disagreed with a local New Hampshire resident Wednesday night on the topic of same-sex marriage.
During Wednesday night's debate, Fox's Carl Cameron, on location at a local diner, asked a New Hampshire state employee whether she thought a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage should be passed. "Absolutely not," said Heidi Turcotte. "We're the state of 'live free or die', and people should be able to marry the person they love."
Cameron then tossed the same question to Brownback for his response.
"I understand this is a divided audience on this," replied Brownback. "And I understand we as a country are struggling with this question. But these issues aren't done in a vacuum." The presidential hopeful went on to say, "When you do these vast, social experiments - and that's what this is, when you redefine marriage, it's a vast, social experiment - they're not done in isolation. They impact the rest of the culture around you. When you take the sacredness out of marriage, you will drive the marriage rates down."
Brownback said more attention needs to be focused on strengthening families. "And currently in this country - currently - we're at 36 percent of our children born out of wedlock," he said. "You can raise a good child in that setting, but we know the best place is between a mom and a dad, bonded together for life."
–CNN Political Desk Editor Jamie Crawford