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发帖数: 19713 | 1 75 Prominent Republicans Say Marriage Is Constitutional Right
Dozens of prominent Republicans including Meg Whitman, Jon Huntsman,
Christine Todd Whitman, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen support marriage
equality.
BY MICHELLE GARCIA FEBRUARY 26 2013 11:47 AM ET
A group of 75 Republicans have signed a court brief telling the U.S. Supreme
Court that marriage is a constitutional right for same-sex couples in
America.
The brief is in reference to California's Proposition 8, which rescinded
rights for same-sex couples to wed after the state Supreme Court legalized
the practice in 2008, the New York Times reports.
The group includes former governors Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey,
Jon Huntsman of Utah, and William Weld of Massachusetts, as well as Hewlett-
Packard CEO Meg Whitman (who supported Prop. 8 while running for governor of
California, representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Richard
Hanna of New York, and several George W. Bush Administration staffers. Three
major Republicans who have expressed their support for legalizing marriage
equality, Colin Powell, Laura Bush, and Dick Cheyney, have not signed the
brief. Still, more Republicans may sign onto the brief.
Ken Mehlman, the former chair of the Republican National Committee who came
out as gay and now sits on the board of the American Foundation for Equal
Rights said he had been working for months to gather the signatures.
"We are trying to say to the court that we are judicial and political
conservatives, and it is consistent with our values and philosophy for you
to overturn Proposition 8," he said in the Times.
Retired House Republican Deborah Pryce of Ohio explained her reason for
signing the brief.
"Like a lot of the country, my views have evolved on this from the first day
I set foot in Congress," she said. "I think it’s just the right thing, and
I think it’s on solid legal footing, too."
The brief indirectly challenges the effort put forth by House Republicans
who have taken on the task to defend the so-called Defense of Marriage Act
in federal court cases after the Obama Administration announced that it
would no longer defend the law in court. DOMA will be argued before the
Supreme Court along with the Proposition 8 case in March.
According to The Atlantic, the National Organization for Marriage announced
Monday that it would "do everything in its power to defeat any Republican
who votes in favor of same-sex marriage."
The Proposition 8 case will be argued by conservative attorney Theodore B.
Olson, the solicitor general under President George W. Bush. He and his co-
counsel on the case, David Boies, faced each other in the 2000 Supreme Court
case of Bush v. Gore. | m******1
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