Former senator and presidential GOP
candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday warned that the Supreme Court
rulings on gay marriage were paving the way for the “death knell”
of marriage.
The high court decisions handed down
Wednesday mean that California will become the 13th state,
plus the District of Columbia, to allow gay nuptials, and that the
federal government must recognize those unions.
Santorum made his comments in an
interview with NewsmaxTV.
“If the court does what it seems
obvious they are doing. When they say that you can't be opposed to
the redefinition of marriage unless you're a hater or bigot, then it
seems pretty obvious to me that when another case comes up that
they're going to establish some sort of constitutional right or find
that marriage is unconstitutional in its current form. That to me
will put the death knell in it.”
Santorum, however, said that he
remained optimistic for his side, saying that as more people see the
effects of marriage equality, opposition will grow.
“I think that when people begin to
see the consequences of the changing of the marriage laws and the
impact on children, the impact on marriage and on families and on
civilization, I think you'll see this issue begin to turn back around
and go in our favor again,” Santorum
said. (The audio is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)