'A huge red flag': Op-ed offers blistering assessment of Ted Cruz’s 'states’ rights' argument

19 July 2022

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is facing scrutiny for his recent assessment of Obergefell v. Hodges. During a recent segment of his podcast, "The Verdict with Ted Cruz," the Republican lawmaker argued that marriage should be "left to the states."

Now, CNN's Dean Obeidallah is weighing in with his take on Cruz's stance as he noted the real purpose of the "states' rights" arguments put forth by Republican lawmakers. "The states' rights argument has long been used to deprive Americans of fundamental freedoms in our past -- the most obvious example being before the Civil War by those who enslaved Black people," Obeidallah wrote.

He also shared his interpretation of Cruz's remarks and his invocation of former President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address. "It's not that Cruz's words alone conjured up Lincoln's address, but that his comments fueled my growing sense that some Republicans don't just want red states but individual red nations. I don't mean formal secession," he wrote.

He added, "But it's more akin to sovereign nations where they can act unrestrained from federal intervention on issue after issue -- from voting rights to same-sex marriage and even interracial marriage."

Obeidallah went on to note the double standards in Republican lawmakers' arguments. "Yet they still want all the benefits of being part of the United States, with blue states heavily subsidizing some conservative states, as one New York Times columnist has noted."

According to Obeidallah, other Republicans have expressed similar sentiments similar to Cruz's.

"Even before Cruz's comments," he wrote, "other conservative leaders have expressed a similar desire to give states the right to deprive residents of fundamental rights. In his concurring opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling that overturned Roe, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court 'should reconsider' seminal cases recognizing same-sex marriage, the constitutional right to birth control, and a prohibition on state laws that criminalized consensual sex between same-sex individuals."

Obeidallah went on to explain how Republicans' states' rights tactics are already playing out with the U.S. Supreme Court's overturn of Roe v. Wade.

"The latest version of states' rights is playing out in real-time since the Supreme Court recently struck down Roe -- ending a constitutional right to reproductive freedom," he wrote. "In response, some GOP-led states have implemented bans on abortion that begin as early as 'conception.' Some of these laws provide no exception for rape."

He concluded, "I'm reflecting again on the Gettysburg Address -- but this time on the final line. That's where Lincoln stated that we must resolve that a "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." At this point, that sentence may no longer end with a period -- but rather with a question mark."

Watch Cruz' podcast segment below or at this link.

The vulnerability of the Obergefell rulingwww.youtube.com

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