Republican senator Ted Cruz attacked the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage calling it an overreach. In his podcast episode that aired last weekend, the Texas lawmaker discussed the possibility of the Supreme Court dismantling Obergefell.
This comes as the Supreme Court recently went against precedent by taking aim at Roe v. Wade, allowing states to ban abortion. According to Cruz, Roe v. Wade & Obergefell “ignored two centuries of our nation’s history.” Arguing that it should be up to the states to define marriage. “Marriage was always an issue that was left to the states, we saw states before Obergefell, some states were moving to allow gay marriage, other states were moving to allow civil partnerships,” Cruz said.
Cruz argued that the constitution was “set up” for people to advance issues by “convincing fellow citizens” which he claims leads to legislative change. The senator believes that it was an overreach for the Supreme Court to make this decision, “in Obergefell, the court said, ‘no, we know better than you guys do, and now every state must sanction and permit gay marriage.’”
The Texas senator has received a lot of backlash on social media following his comments. Critics point to Loving v. Virginia, a 1967 ruling that legalized interracial marriage accross all states. Arguing that the Supreme Court has made other rulings in the past that guarantee equal rights to all Americans and that under the same reasoning also could be deemed to have been overreaches. Other critics on Twitter were quick to reply with a 2022 Gallup poll that shows that 71% of Americans support same-sex marriage as a response to Cruz’ “fellow citizens” argument.