The GOP presidential candidates discussed marriage rights for gay and lesbian people for close to ten minutes during Saturday night’s ABC News/Yahoo debate in New Hampshire. The Republicans expressed support for extending limited benefits to same-sex couples, but strongly opposed marriage equality:
NEWT GINGRICH: We want to make it possible to have those things that are most intimately human between friends.
RICK SANTORUM: I’m certainly not going to have a federal law that bans adoption for gay couples, when there are only gay couples in certain states.
MITT ROMNEY: There is every right for people in this country to form long-term committed relationships with one another. That doesn’t mean that they have to call it marriage.
RICK PERRY: That is a war against religion and it’s going to stop under a Perry administration.
New Hampshire legalized same-sex marriage in 2009 and the law is widely supported across the state. Watch a compilation:
Previous in TP LGBT
By clicking and submitting a comment I acknowledge the ThinkProgress Privacy Policy and agree to the ThinkProgress Terms of Use. I understand that my comments are also being governed by Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policies as applicable, which can be found here.