The Daily Background

Oh boy, get a load of this. First, here’s Fred Thompson in Iowa on August 17th, discussing his stance on gay marriage bans:

Partial transcript:

“I think with regard to gay marriage you have a [inaudible] issue. I don’t think one state ought to be able to pass a law requiring gay marriage or allowing gay marriage and have another state be required to follow along under full faith and credit. There’s some exceptions, exemptions for that. Hasn’t happened yet, but I think a federal court very well likely will go in that direction. And the constitutional amendment would cure that.”

In other words, he thinks of gay marriage as more or less a federal issue, and wants a ban on gay marriage to happen at a federal, constitutional level. Now, here comes a clarification from his non-campaign campaign today that says he believes the exact opposite– treating gay marriage as a states issue, rather than a federal issue:

Thompson believes that states should be able to adopt their own laws on marriage consistent with the views of their citizens.

He does not believe that one state should be able to impose its marriage laws on other states, or that activist judges should construe the constitution to require that.

If necessary, he would support a constitutional amendment prohibiting states from imposing their laws on marriage on other states.

Fred Thompson does not support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

Kind of reinforces the mini-meme that Thompson isn’t ready for prime-time, doesn’t it? I mean, if he lays out his position one way, and then later his campaign sends out a press release saying he believes the exact opposite of what he told CNN. Did his aides remind him what his stance really was? Did he forget? Does he not have a good enough grasp of the issues to know what a conservative should or shouldn’t say about this? It looks awful.

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