Kentucky Senator and 2016 GOP presidential hopeful Rand Paul has broken his silence on the U.S. Supreme Court's Friday ruling which legalized same-sex marriage in all fifty states.
Writes Paul in a new essay published in TIME:
I acknowledge the right to contract in all economic and personal spheres, but that doesn't mean there isn't a danger that a government that involves itself in every nook and cranny of our lives won't now enforce definitions that conflict with sincerely felt religious convictions of others.
Some have argued that the Supreme Court's ruling will now involve the police power of the state in churches, church schools, church hospitals.
This may well become the next step, and I for one will stand ready to resist any intrusion of government into the religious sphere.
The government should not prevent people from making contracts but that does not mean that the government must confer a special imprimatur upon a new definition of marriage.
Perhaps the time has come to examine whether or not governmental recognition of marriage is a good idea, for either party.
Since government has been involved in marriage, they have done what they always do — taxed it, regulated it, and now redefined it. It is hard to argue that government's involvement in marriage has made it better, a fact also not surprising to those who believe government does little right.
Until today, Paul was one of the few Republican candidates who had not yet expressed his displeasure with the ruling. You can read what Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, Donald Trump, and Scott Walker had to say HERE.
