James Clyburn, Barack Obama, Marriage Equality
James Clyburn: Marriage Equality Is National Issue, Not States Issue [VIDEO]
The third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, Rep. James Clyburn, (D-SC), is breaking with President Barack Obama on marriage equality, reports MSNBC.
Clyburn, who acknowledged his “fundamentalist Christian roots,” says that he has evolved on the issue and now believe that it should not be a states’ issue, but a “national” issue:
“I, like the president, have evolved to a point of marriage equality,” said Clyburn. “I have not always been there. I grew up in a parsonage, a fundamentalist Christian parsonage, and I grew up with that indoctrination. And I have grown to the point that I believe that we have evolved to marriage equality.”
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“If we consider this to be a civil right — and I do — I don’t think civil rights ought to be left up to a state-by-state approach,” Clyburn continued. “I think that we should have a national policy on this.”
Clyburn went a step further and said just as the federal government had to step in to ensure that Black Americans had rights and protection under the law equal to White Americans, they needed to do the same thing for the LGBT community.
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