In the second part of his recent interview with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network, which was posted on CBN’s website over the weekend, Marco Rubio said that he will only nominate Supreme Court justices who believe that the court’s rulings on marriage equality and abortion rights are “constitutionally flawed.”
After claiming that Obergefell and Roe have no constitutional basis, the Florida senator added that he would also reverse President Obama’s executive order barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity among federal contractors.
In a previously released part of the interview, Rubio told Brody that government officials should flout court rulings on gay rights and abortion because “God’s rules always win.”
Brody: What could a President Rubio do in a situation like that? A lot of folks have talked about maybe religious liberty, the religious freedom act. Mike Huckabee and others have said some things like that.
Rubio: There’s no doubt that we need to be extra vigilant now about protecting the religious liberties of Americans and that includes having a justice department that’s vigilant about ensuring that those who hold traditional values are not being discriminated against. That includes reversing any administrative decisions made by this President that force religious, or religious motivated entities. You may not be owned by a church, but you are a religious school, or your mission is to spread the Gospel and adhere to God’s teachings ensure that people in the private sector and the not-for-profit sector are being protected in living out their faith.
And beyond it, I think one of the biggest things the next President is going to do is appoint justices to the Supreme Court -- justices who understand that the Constitution is not a living and breathing document. It is a document of limitation and it’s supposed to be interpreted and applied based on its original intent. And there is no way that you can read that Constitution and deduce from it that there is constitutional right to an abortion, or a constitutional right to marry someone of the same sex. And what you have is a Supreme Court that wanted to reach a certain policy outcome and so creatively manipulated the Constitution to discover a right that for over two centuries, some of the most brilliant minds in legal history didn’t find.
So you need judges that understand how constitutionally flawed that those two kinds of rulings and others have been and that’s what the most important thing the next President will do is appoint Supreme Court justices that actually will apply the constitution irrespective of their personal feelings about the issue.
Brody: As well as potential executive orders and possibly a strong attorney general in that role.
Rubio: Well, the executive orders would be to reverse the executive orders the President has made on things like gender equality in restrooms. You’ve seen some local districts and others been forced to provide girls access to a boys’ bathroom and so forth. These sorts of things you’ve seen in Illinois for example, but also ensure that we’re not doing anything that at any part in our government that is putting organizations that are either motivated by their faith or organized around their faith from having to violate the tenants of their faith and that includes government contractors.
There are many government contractors and small companies who provide services to the government who are faith-based people, and they are, they are being compelled to sin by government in their business conduct. That is not something that we should be supporting.
