On Monday’s CBS This Morning, co-host Norah O’Donnell asked New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor about how the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling would impact 2016 Republican candidates: “...none of the 13 Republican candidates who are running for president have embraced gay marriage. How does that affect the ongoing presidential campaign?”
Kantor replied: “I think those candidates are in a tough spot....They were saying that they disagreed with the decision but they were very respectful everyone, etcetera, etcetera. Because they don't really want to be seen as throwbacks, they don’t want to be seen as backwards looking.”
Moments later, she declared that “it's a terrible position for candidates to be in” and set up a false scenario for the GOP contenders: “If they have to choose between, you know, a couple who wants to be served in a restaurant and then a waiter who says ‘I don't have to, it’s against my religion.’ I don't think a Republican candidate is gonna want to choose sides in that battle.”
In an article for the Times on Saturday, entitled “Historic Day for Gays, but Twinge of Loss for an Outsider Culture,” Kantor fretted: “The Supreme Court on Friday expanded same-sex marriage rights across the country, a crowning achievement but also a confounding challenge to a group that has often prided itself on being different.”
On This Morning, Kantor worried:
So much of gay identity in culture is born of persecution, born of stigma, born of this terrible treatment. How do things change now that gay marriage is really just marriage in many ways?...So whether you look at gay neighborhoods or gay bars, these were safe spaces for gay people where they knew that they would be treated well. Those places are less necessary now. So what happens to them?
Here is an excerpt of the June 29 segment:
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8:07 AM ET
NORAH O’DONNELL: Let's turn to politics, because none of the 13 Republican candidates who are running for president have embraced gay marriage. How does that affect the ongoing presidential campaign?
JODI KANTOR: I think those candidates are in a tough spot because – and I think we saw with some of the Republican candidates statements, they were kind of trying to have it both ways. They were saying that they disagreed with the decision but they were very respectful everyone, etcetera, etcetera. Because they don't really want to be seen as throwbacks, they don’t want to be seen as backwards looking. And as we’ve seen for really months and months now, there is this fight brewing between on the one hand gay rights and on the other hand claims of religious freedom.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, and you'll begin to see that on the Sunday talk shows, where Republicans began to talk about what actions they might take now in the battle for votes in the Republican primary.
O’DONNELL: Yeah, so explain that schism. Some are calling for a constitutional amendment, where some are just saying-
GAYLE KING: “Accept the Court's decision.”
O’DONNELL: “Accept the Court’s decision.”
ROSE: And some talk about protest, you know, citing Martin Luther King, for example.
KANTOR: And it's a terrible position for candidates to be in. If they have to choose between, you know, a couple who wants to be served in a restaurant and then a waiter who says “I don't have to, it’s against my religion.” I don't think a Republican candidate is gonna want to choose sides in that battle.
(...)
