Last night on her MSNBC show, host Rachel Maddow was live from Alaska, where she interviewed all three candidates running for the state’s U.S. Senate seat — including Tea Party favorite Joe Miller. Maddow stressed throughout the program that trying to interview Miller was difficult. After weeks of pushing, Maddow said, “Today, I was finally allowed to ask Joe Miller a couple of questions while we moved from a roof, through a lobby, down an escalator, through another lobby, out a door, into an SUV and then it was over.”
During that short and “strange” interview, Maddow noted that one of Miller’s staffers runs a website proclaiming to cure gays of their homosexuality and asked if Miller thinks being gay is a choice. Without answering the question directly, Miller simply said that “it really is a state issue.” After Maddow asked him to clarify, Miller said, “I think that’s up to the individual,” after returning back to his original claim that “it’s a state issue.”
Yet, later in the interview, Miller said he supports the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law stating that marriage is between a man and a women. After Maddow noted this obvious contradiction on whether the government should be involved in these personal issues, Miller tried to weasel his way out, but ultimately said he would vote for a federal constitutional marriage banning gay marriage:
MADDOW: But you do want a federal role in restricting a state’s ability to legalize gay marriage but at the state level –
MILLER: That’s not what I said. I said that there is a federal role. There are obviously federal decisions that are made based on the status of marriage.
MADDOW: Do you think there should be a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage?
MILLER: That’s up to the people. You’ve got a three-quarters vote, ratified, I’d vote for it.
MADDOW: You would vote for it?
MILLER: Yeah, I would. But it would require an amendment to the Constitution.
Watch the interview:
Maddow also asked Miller about his belief that the 17th Amendment — which allows for public election of U.S. senators, rather than state legislatures — should be repealed. But again, Miller dodged. “That wasn’t the discussion,” he said, adding that “the discussion was about the kind of theory behind the 17th Amendment,” right before he got away in his SUV.
Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart recently observed the key component behind the conservative orthodoxy Miller espoused in his position on gay rights. Republicans “always hit the old platitudes of ‘we trust you the people,’ ‘it’s about freedom and liberty,’ ‘it’s about small government,’ and then you get in there, and you expand government,” he said, adding, that it’s a “fallacy that limited government is the principled stand of conservatives. It’s only limited to the shit they want to do.”
Transcript:
MADDOW: In terms of gay rights issues, there’s a man on your campaign payroll who runs a website called hopeforhomosexuals.com, his name is Terry Moffitt. Do you agree with him that homosexuality can be changed it can be cured?
MILLER: … it really is a state issue. As to how those issues want to be resolved it should be handled at the state level and as far – you’re talking about who again?
MADDOW: Terry Moffitt.
MILLER: Ok yeah, he worked with us in the primary. I have not seen his website so I’m not able to comment.
MADDOW: Do you agree that homosexuality is a choice?
MILLER: I think that’s up to the individual. The individual has to make that decision.
MADDOW: About whether or not they’re gay or about whether or not they believe that?
[Long pause].
MILLER: You know I’m not going to intrude upon an individual’s decision as to what he or she does. The fact of the matter is, it’s a state issue. That’s our position in the campaign, that’s our answer to the question.
MADDOW: Ok.
MILLER: You know we’re increasingly a diverse country and I want to be straight with you and as a diverse country I think it’s important that we recognize that there are different approaches to different values and I think that it’s best for states to be able to make those choices. Like for example, the state of Alaska, this is a good example. We passed to have a constitutional amendment saying that marriage is between a man and a woman in 1998. You know there are other states that decided differently and you could probably I think suggest that that is something that accommodates the very diverse country that we have today.
MADDOW: Is there a federal role in banning gay marriage?
MILLER: Well I think there’s the Defense of Marriage Act which I support but again –
MADDOW: But why should it be a federal role there if it should be a state issue otherwise?
MILLER: Well my perspective is that it is a — the core a state issue but there are federal issues obviously intertwined. You’ve got taxation policy and otherwise [inaudible] upon certain standards. And so as a consequence of taxation is run through the federal government there clearly is a federal role. But I think that ultimately as the country becomes more diverse that those decisions have got to be left to the state level as something that can keep us together as a country. It can accommodate the various differences that we have in the country and I think it also allows people to be much more active and involved at the state level making policy changes and you know, just like our founders intended, laboratories of democracy. What better way to see how things work out than at that level?
MADDOW: But you do want a federal role in restricting a state’s ability to legalize gay marriage but at the state level –
MILLER: That’s not what I said. I said that there is a federal role. There are obviously federal decisions that are made based on the status of marriage.
MADDOW: Do you think there should be a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage?
MILLER: That’s up to the people. You’ve got a three-quarters vote, ratified, I’d vote for it.
MADDOW: You would vote for it?
MILLER: Yeah I would. But it would require an amendment to the Constitution.
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