Sen. Paul: I didn't think Obama's 'views on marriage could get any gayer'
(CNN) – Sen. Rand Paul on Friday brushed off Barack Obama's recent reversal on same-sex marriage by saying he didn't think the president's views "could get any gayer."
The remarks from the Republican senator from Kentucky scored laughs among those attending an event held by Iowa's Faith and Freedom Coalition, a video uploaded on Saturday to the conservative website "The Iowa Republican" shows.
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"The president, you know, recently weighed in on marriage. And, you know, he said his views were evolving on marriage," the first-term senator said Friday evening. "Call me cynical, but I wasn't sure that his views on marriage could get any gayer."
Paul, who is the son of GOP presidential longshot and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, made the comments two days after Obama announced that he supported same-sex marriage, which he had previously opposed, while adding he thought the issue should be left up to the states to decide.
Rand Paul had been advertised as the coalition's "special guest" for its 12th annual spring event. The organization's website also promoted the presence of Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ralph Reed, who is the chairman of the national Faith and Freedom Coalition.
In the remarks captured on video, Paul spoke against abortion as well as same-sex marriage.
"I think we're in a spiritual crisis as a country," Paul said, "and I think you're going to need leaders beyond your political leaders."
The senator criticized Obama's explanation that the Golden Rule - to treat others how one wants to be treated - and his faith led to his evolved understanding of marriage. The Golden Rule has its roots in biblical verses.
"It did bother me though that he used the justification for it in a biblical reference," Paul said. "He said the biblical Golden Rule caused him to be for gay marriage. And I'm like, what version of the Bible is he reading?
"It's not the King James version, it's not the New American Standard, it's not the New Revised version," he added.
But Paul said his beliefs and those of other social conservatives and Christians do not "mean we have to be harsh and mean and hate people."
"We understand sin and if we believe it's a sin, we still are (sinners) and people sin," he said. "We're not out there preaching some sort of hateful dogma against people. But that doesn't mean that we have to go ahead and give up our traditions."
"Six thousand years of tradition" combined with "anthropological" evidence shows "there's stability in the family unit," he said.
Calls placed Saturday to the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, as well as to Paul's offices and spokeswoman, were not immediately returned.
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I am concerned with the current economic state of our country, the environment, and education. Gay marriage and abortion are someone's PERSONAL choice. When a male senator can become pregnant, then I will listen to what he has to say about abortion. No one has any right to tell someone who they can and cannot marry. I have lost complete faith in our government and the general population for electing officials who continue to degrade out country and push their "OPINIONS" on everyone else as laws.
Senator Paul, I thought you were for less government?
...and yet another dim witted Republican moron proves what the REAL crisis is in this country- ignorance. Keep blabbering dummy.
A planet holding 7 billion people does not need this kind of thinking. The notion of family he needs updating. Republicans are, indeed, in the wrong side of history.
He's like a cut-rate Bush kid with a less successful daddy.
Ron Paul Jr., I presume.
Rand, Rand, Rand... you're so butch. Not. If you're trying to get out of the closet, you're doing a great job.
Now there's a real champion of personal liberty, what a moron, same has his do nothing dad.
Time for another holy war. I just think it's time for the religious to get down and dirty in a real fight...see how badly they believe in what they preach when the costs are placed at their feet. There are people willing to die for these rights. Are you willing to die to deny them those rights. I don't believe many people really are.
amazing how some people gain positions of power in this country. more of an intelligence crisis than spiritual crisis. gotta keep faith in the supernatural. what a bonehead
I didn't think that compassion and caring about a persons civil rights was a gay thing but if that is the way the GOP/Tea Party want to think of it, so be it. Oh, I see...its because they have no compassion or empathy for fellow human beings..that is unless they belong to the 1%.
Did Rand Paul really just deny the Golden Rule?
Nothing gay about having big enough b@lls to stand by your values....Mittens wouldn't know anything about that the way he flips flops on everything.
Has he looked at his state's mountain people missing teeth, lack of education, people-killing crops like tobacco, and so forth? Although I'm from KY, the point is that it's easy to make fun of differences. Civil rights for different peoples is something the South misses. If you don't want to marry a gay person, then don't. If others do, mind your own business. No one's looking for your approval/disapproval.
The GOP should just change their symbol from an Elephant to a Face Palm.
Seems that Paul Jr. is following in Paul Sr.'s footsteps with the bigotry. I imagine he'll be saying it was someone else that wrote those remarks, and he didn't even read them before saying them.
You would think that he would support gay marriage since he's a "libertarian".
Rand Paul, himself, is probably gay. All of those so-called 'Christian' moralists men who protest the most against gay people usually turn out to be wearing women's panties and are gay themselves.
Rand Paul, the face of the new GOP: hateful, bigoted and proud of it. I hope enough sane, progressive Americans vote this November and send a clear signal to the GOP: your brand is tarnished, your message is hateful, and your team will become extinct in a few decades. Obama 2012, seriously.
Senator Paul went to school to learn how to do hair and is good at it!!!
Now call me crazy, but what if the news covered real important issues going on in our country? I mean, this media circus over Obama's "groundbreaking gay marriage announcement" is starting to get ridiculous. Its just another election-time political stunt. When was the last time Obama followed through with ANYTHING he promised in his last campaign anyways? Maybe you guys should cover his record of what he said he'd do vs. what he actually did?
Call me cynical, but for a man that is named after Ayn Rand, a lesbian/atheist, he should should take care throwing stones. His comments do not sound like a libertarian that espouses freedom and liberty for all. Marriage has evolved significantly in the past 6,000 yrs. He backs a Mormon who can hardly speak to the traditions of marriage as lil Rand sees it. just 45 yrs. ago the SCOTUS struck down miscegenation laws in many states. The Old Testament is filled with examples of respected leaders that did not conform to traditional marriage as defined by the ky- jelly senator. Ron Paul and son along with Ryan(R-Wi.) just loooove ms. Rand and her views that workers are mere parasites and the only people of value in society are the individualists, or rather in todays lil GOPer vernacular, "the job creators". How far would this country have gotten adhering to that faux philosophy? By the way, who, exactly pays these individualists?
Come out Rand!
If you want to know what's sadly wrong with America and the insidious albatross known as religion with clear proof that in reality there's no difference between radical vermin called christians and those radicals called muslim. They don't want just the freedom to pratice their beliefs, they want to FORCE everyone else to do so too. Until the evil of religion is no more the world will be stuck in the past and if it last long enough we will shrivel and die not just as a civilization but as a species as well.
An argument based on six thousand years of tradition – really? First, that's a nod to creationism and that the earth is only six thousand years old – easy to dispute. And just because it's tradition does not make it right. We had a tradition in the US about slavery and oppression but realized it was wrong. We are evolving but Paul just showed that he is stuck in six thousand year old thinking. What a neanderthal!