Texas Rep. Bill Flores on Tuesday
suggested that allowing gay couples to marry contributed to the
conditions which led to the Baltimore riots.
During an appearance on Washington
Watch radio, Tony Perkins, president of the Christian
conservative Family Research Council (FRC), stated that Congress is
the “last stop” to fix “problems.”
“And a lot of these problems are
created by the breakdown of the family, which the redefinition of
marriage would only accelerate,” Perkins asserted.
“You're exactly right, Tommy,”
responded
Flores, a Republican.
“Let’s talk about poverty, for
instance. The single best indicator of whether or not a child is
going to be in poverty or not is whether or not they were raised by a
two-parent household or a single parent household, so the breakdown
of the family has contributed to poverty. Look at what is going on
in Baltimore today, you see the issues that are raised there.
Healthy marriages are the ones between a man and a woman because they
can have a healthy family and they can raise children in a way that's
best for their future, not only socially but psychologically,
economically, from a health perspective. There is nothing like
traditional marriage that does that for a child. Each of us have a
mother and a father and there is no way to get around that.”
Maryland began issuing marriage
licenses to gay couples in December 2012 and couples began exchanging
vows on New Year's Day.
Additionally, Flores claimed that 80
percent of Americans are opposed to the Supreme Court legalizing
marriage for gay couples in all 50 states. According to an AP
poll conducted earlier this month, 50 percent of those
interviewed said “the Supreme Court should rule that same-sex
marriage must be legal nationwide,” while 48 percent disagreed.