Sunday's Meet the Press included
Rachel Maddow and David Gregory deflating the anti-gay marriage
arguments of former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint and Kansas Rep.
Tim Huelskamp.
DeMint, the current president of the
conservative Heritage Foundation, and Huelskamp, a Republican who
this week announced he'll reintroduce
a federal amendment to the U.S. Constitution limiting marriage to
heterosexual unions, argued that gay and lesbian couples should
not be allowed to marry because children do best in a home headed by
a married straight couple.
“You got 37 states where the people
have decided that they want to protect the marriage between a man and
a woman because they know that's the environment where children can
thrive and succeed. I mean that's been proven. So, it's not about
the desires of adults, it's really about the best environment for
children,” DeMint
said.
“Justice Kennedy addressed that issue
specifically in his ruling,” Maddow responded. “He says that by
denying marriage rights to same-sex couples who have kids, you're
humiliating and demeaning those kids … So, we can put it in the
best interest of children, but I think that cuts both ways. And I
think the ruling cuts against that argument.”
“You guys have been arguing for a
generation that public policy ought essentially demean gay people as
a way of expressing disapproval of the fact that we exist. But you
don't make any less of us exist. You just are arguing in favor of
discrimination,” she added.
Huelskamp made a similar argument in a
later segment of the program: “The research is very clear that the
ideal for raising our children should be the issue here.”
“There is really no evidence to
suggest that if you are a same-sex couple or a heterosexual couple
that it makes one difference one way or the other,” Gregory said.
“Well, actually the research does not
show that,” Huelskamp responded. “Actually, the research is very
clear as we have indicated here ...”
“No, no,” Gregory interrupted.
“The research actually shows that in broken homes it hurts the
children. Which I think that most people would say that would be
true with same-sex couples or heterosexual couples.”
Huelskamp insisted that the court had
ruled against the needs of children.