Sen. Marco Rubio told reporters on Tuesday that he has never supported a national constitutional amendment banning gay marriage despite his general opposition to such unions, preferring to leave the issue to the states. But a 2010 voter guide from a leading social conservative group indicates he supported such an amendment as recently as 2010 and a spokeswoman for the organization told msnbc they stand by their account.
“I’ve never supported a federal constitutional amendment on marriage,” Rubio told msnbc’s Kasie Hunt in an interview Tuesday.
But the Christian Coalition, a group that issues surveys to candidates and tracks their positions on a variety of issues, reported in their 2010 English and Spanish voter guides that Rubio supported a Federal Marriage Amendment. The guides are posted on the group’s website. The organization surveys candidates around the country and rates them, among other issues, on their specific stand on the issue of gay marriage.
Reached by msnbc for comment, a Christian Coalition spokeswoman confirmed that Rubio had filled out a candidate survey in 2010 when he was running for the Senate in Florida and attested to the voter guide’s accuracy, which she said was rigorously checked against candidate’s questionnaires, votes, and public statements. However, she said the group could not immediately produce a copy of Rubio’s survey without digging into their archives.
A representative for Rubio, Brooke Sammon, told msnbc that she had no explanation for the voter guide’s conclusion but reaffirmed that Rubio “never supported the FMA.”
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In 2009, Rubio declined to take a position on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in an interview with Slate’s Chris Beam, saying he had “mixed feelings” about the idea. He’s since come out more explicitly against the proposal, telling Buzzfeed in 2013 he was “uncomfortable with a federal constitutional amendment.”
Benjy Sarlin