Jindal: ‘Offensive’ To Equate Gay Marriage to Interracial Marriage Opposition

TODD: “Now, the issue of religion and faith was used in the '60s during the debate about interracial marriage. None other than former president Harry Truman, here's The New York Times from September 12th, 1963, the headline: ‘Truman Opposes Biracial Marriage,’ and here is his reasoning, governor. ‘He said that racial intermarriage ran counter to teachings of the Bible.’ So are you comfortable using religion as a way to defend your position on marriage?”

JINDAL: “Chuck, I am. Look, I think it's offensive to evangelical Christians, to Catholics that are trying to follow their church's teachings, and millions of other Americans who believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. It has been taught in our faith for centuries. It was just a few years ago the position held by President Obama and Secretary Clinton. This wasn't just a Republican position. So I think it's offensive to try to equate the two. I'm glad that America has moved towards a much better view on race relations. I've said we need to stop viewing ourselves as hyphenated Americans, we're not African Americans or Indian Americans, we're all Americans. I think viewing people by the color of their skin is one of the dumbest ways to view people. I've written that, I have said that. So I think it's offensive to equate evangelical Christians, Catholics, others that view marriage as between a man and a woman, as being racist. We're not racist. We love our fellow man, we think we're all equal under God's eyes, we simply believe that marriage, we don't believe we should change the definition of marriage simply because of opinion polls or because of a court that quite frankly isn't looking at the constitution. Earlier this week, Scalia says that words no longer have meaning in an Obamacare decision. So you can have a court that's not reading the Constitution, not reading the dictionary. Why couldn't the court have said, ‘We're going to respect the decisions made by the states’? Why not say, ‘We're going to defer to the elected representatives of the people’?”