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  • 2016-02-01 (xsd:date)
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  • Trump Plans to Reverse Marriage Equality as President? (en)
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  • On 31 January 2016, a number of social media users shared links to articles reporting that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had sworn to overturn the legality of same-sex marriage if elected President, with a New York magazine item of that date reporting: Donald Trump indeed appeared on Fox News Sunday with interviewer Chris Wallace on 31 January 2016 and briefly discussed the Supreme Court's landmark 5-4 Obergefell v. Hodges decision in 2015. A record of that discussion is available via a transcript provided by Fox: Interviewer Chris Wallace initially questioned Trump about a statement made by the latter suggesting that he was disinterested in any sort of Republican party line opposing same-sex marriage because the issue had already been definitively decided by the Supreme Court. In response, Trump said the opposite: that he felt the matter of same-sex marriage should have been left to individual states to decide, and that he would be very strong on putting certain judges on the bench that I think maybe could change things. When Wallace questioned if Trump truly meant that he might try to appoint justices to overrule the decision on same-sex marriage, the candidate responded by affirming that he would strongly consider that. Trump was clearly courting a political base with his answer about reversing the legality of same-sex marriage, but when asked if he planned to pursue such a course of action, Trump said only that he'd consider it (which is Trump's stock answer to a plethora of policy issues: a non-committal assurance that he will look into or consider a potential course of action). The likelihood of a Trump administration taking whatever action it can to reverse marriage equality increased after the GOP nominee named Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, a social conservative with a long history of taking anti-LGBT stands, as his running mate. Pence's 2000 Congressional campaign web site listed the following position statements under the heading Strengthening the American Family: In June 2015, The Journal Gazette reported that Pence had made a statement echoing Donald Trump's position that same-sex marriage is properly a state's rights issue: In September 2016, Donald Trump vowed to sign the so-called First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), if passed by Congress, a bill that aims to prevent the federal government from enforcing marriage equality by taking punitive action against individuals, corporations, or organizations who discriminate against same-sex married couples. Critics say the bill would effectively legalize such discrimination. Trump was elected President of the United States on 8 November 2016. Neither he nor Pence had significantly modified their stances on same-sex marriage between the primaries and the general election. While the president does not have the Constitutional power to overturn a Supreme Court decision, he does have the ability to appoint justices who would. Based on past statements of both the president- and vice president-elect, it seems likely that this will come to pass should any vacancies in the Supreme Court occur. (en)
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