The National Organization for Marriage
(NOM) has come to aid of Missouri Representative Vicky Hartzler, who
has been criticized for likening gay marriage to polygamy and incest.
Hartzler
and Florida Rep. Allen West warned members of Phyllis Schlafly's
socially conservative Eagle Forum against the institution.
“If you just care about somebody,
have a committed relationship, why not allow one man and two women or
three women to marry. There are a lot of people in this country that
support polygamy. Why not? They're committed to each other, why
should you care? Why not allow a group marriage? There are people
out there who want that. … Why not allow an uncle to marry his
niece? Why not allow a 50-year-old man to marry a 12-year-old girl,
that they love each other and are committed,” Hartzler said last
week.
“If you don't set parameters, you
don't have any parameters at all, a license means nothing. A
marriage means nothing.”
“It's not a right in a constitution
part that goes either. It's not a right of a three-year-old to drive
a car.” (The video, provided
by Right Wing Watch, is embedded in the right panel of this
page.)
In
an interview with the website PoliticMO.com, Hartzler defended
her remarks, saying they had been taken out of context.
“I was saying that if you change the
standard in the country to having marriage be, which is what they
want, that just anybody that has a loving and committed relationship,
then you set yourself on a slippery slope legally in courts to having
other people come forward with similar arguments that would be
objectionable to almost everyone,” she told the website. “So,
that's another reason why it makes sense to just keep the traditional
definition of a man and a woman and that it’s my main point there
is that it’s wise public policy.”
“So, obviously those comments are
just being misconstrued by those,” she added.
NOM, the nation's most vociferous
opponent of gay marriage, posted the video on their blog under the
headline Video: Rep. Vicky Hartzler Defends Marriage,
suggesting the group agrees with such comparisons.