Florida Senator Marco Rubio has come
out against a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
Rubio is considered a rising star in
the Republican Party. And his star will rise higher next week when
he delivers the GOP response to President Barack Obama's State of the
Union address. Rubio's plan to speak in English and Spanish has
created controversy.
The 41-year-old first-term senator
appears on the cover of Time magazine under the headline “The
Republican Savior: How Marco Rubio became the new voice of the GOP.”
Last year, Rubio joined former Arkansas
Governor Mike Huckabee in helping fellow Republican Mitt Romney's
presidential aspirations by recording
anti-gay marriage robocalls for the National Organization for
Marriage (NOM).
In an interview with BuzzFeed, Rubio
said he believes the issue is best handled at the state level.
“I've always been uncomfortable with
a federal constitutional amendment on anything, in particular on
that, because I think it steps on the rights of states to define
marriage,” Rubio said.
“That's a two-way street, though,”
he added. “If states define marriage as between one man and one
woman … if you're going to say it belongs to the states, then you
have to respect whatever decision they make. And that includes
states like Florida that have passed a constitutional amendment that
says marriage is between a man and a woman. And likewise you have
states that are headed in a different direction.”
Still, Rubio would not say whether he
opposes the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law which
prevents the federal government from recognizing the legal marriages
of gay and lesbian couples.
He called the legal challenge to DOMA
“a very interesting constitutional question” on “whether the
federal government needs to recognize a state's definition.” (The
video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)