Say this for Karl Rove: His approach to same-sex marriage is one any tradition-minded American could love.
First there was the proposal. George Stephanopoulos asked: Do you, Karl Rove, take same-sex marriage to be a lawfully-wedded position for a 2016 GOP candidate to have and to hold?
“I could,” Rove replied.
And then today, Rove did what so many couples with fraught histories do: he re-wrote his.
Seconds from concluding an appearance on Fox News this morning, Rove ended with this whopper:
“I think Republicans on both sides of this issue have a healthy respect for those who may not agree with them inside the party. At least, that’s been my experience thus far.”
And just to repeat that: It is Karl Rove’s experience that Republicans have a healthy respect for people who don’t agree on the topic of same-sex marriage.
If anyone objects to Karl Rove’s version of history, let them speak now or forever hold their peace:
- “Marriage is and should be defined as being between one man and one woman.” – Karl Rove, 2004 (Meet the Press)
- “Without the protection of [a same-sex marriage] amendment, we are at the mercy of activist federal judges or activist state judges who could, without the involvement of the people, determine, as the Massachusetts Supreme Court did, that marriage no longer consists of a union between a man and a woman.” – Karl Rove, 2004 (Fox News Sunday)
- “Karl Rove, Lifelong Gay-Baiter” (The New Republic)
- “It’s Texas, 1994, and Karl Rove is running George W. Bush’s campaign against Gov. Ann Richards. Bush appears to be in for an uphill fight against a popular incumbent, but then the whispers and the rumors start. Maybe there’s a lesbian working for Richards. Maybe she’s using state funds to visit her lover. Maybe Richards herself is gay.” (Salon)
- “The president’s done himself some damage on the gay marriage issue, in part because he flip-flopped but also because of the way that he did it … What kind of profile in courage is that?” – Karl Rove, 2012 (Hannity)
It’s like that line in “Love Story”: Love means never having to say you’re sorry.
John Flowers