Ron DeSantis walked a tightrope between spiritual and secular law during a Thursday town hall on CNN when addressing a question about same-sex marriage.
Asked if he still believes marriage is exclusively an opposite-sex union, DeSantis differentiated between the “Church” position and that of government.
“That’s just what marriage is with the church and I respect the Supreme Court’s decision. We’ve abided by that in Florida even though our Constitution defines it as between a man and a woman,” DeSantis said, referring to the Obergefell decision.
DeSantis followed the answer up with a promise to protect arguable discrimination from churches and their adjuncts, though.
“But I think what we need to recognize is, you know, you are going to have people try to wield power against our religious institutions and try to marginalize them simply by upholding the biblical definition of marriage. And so I’m going to protect those religious institutions to be able to do what has always been done in terms of how they consider marriage as a sacrament.”
This interview was at least the second time in the campaign that DeSantis said he recognized the legality of same-sex unions.
During an interview in September on the CBS Evening News, he offered assurances that the Supreme Court wouldn’t do what they did to abortion law and scuttle current protections if he were President, based on his expectations of “reliance interest … with respect to precedent.”
He said that “because there’s a significant reliance interest, that they would not view that the same as they did with Dobbs. And I think that’s likely to be, to be the case going forward. I don’t think you’re gonna see them reevaluate that.”
The Governor’s suggestion that even a more conservative court wouldn’t overturn the 2016 ruling that made same-sex marriage the law of the land might offer reassurances to those who heard his more critical comments after President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law.
At the time, DeSantis told Fox News viewers there was “no need” for the legislation, which protected both same-sex and interracial unions.
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