The GOP starts the move to “living in the real world.”
Governor Tom Corbett salutes as a Boy Scout raises the American flag while the National Anthem is played on Monday, May 26, 2014.
Nabil K. Mark/Centre Daily Times / MCT
NEW YORK CITY — While Republicans aren't likely to join the fight for marriage equality en masse, the past week has shown that a growing core of the party is done fighting.
Since Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett announced last Thursday that he would not be appealing a ruling striking down his state's ban on same-sex couples' marriages, two key Republican voices have signaled that Corbett is right and the fight is over.
The next day, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — one of the Republicans often discussed as a potential 2016 presidential nominee — essentially ceded the issue to federal judges.
"Any federal judge has got to look at that law not only with respect to the state's constitution but what it means in terms of the U.S. Constitution, as well. Again, I'm not going to pretend to tell a federal judge in that regard what he or she should do about it," Walker said, adding that "[v]oters don't talk to [him] about that."
Then, on Wednesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch — a key voice for Republicans on judicial issues since the 1990s — went even further than Walker in an interview with KSL radio.
"Anybody that does not believe that gay marriage is going to be the law of the land just hasn't been observing what's going on," he said. "The trend right now in the courts is to permit gay marriage, and anybody who doesn't admit that just isn't living in the real world."
Following state and federal court rulings in Arkansas, Idaho, Oregon, and Pennsylvania striking down state bans on same-sex couples' marriage — and decisions by Oregon officials and Corbett in Pennsylvania not to appeal those decisions — Corbett, Walker, and Hatch are staking out the new Republican normal on LGBT rights.
Sen. Orrin Hatch
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