Flanking the same-sex marriage advocates outside the Supreme Court Tuesday was one lone Republican senator, Mark Kirk of Illinois.
Sen. Kirk made remarks about his personal support of gay marriage as the Supreme Court justices heard arguments in crucial cases that could result in same-sex marriage being legalized nationally.
Kirk became the second Republican senator after Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) to back same-sex unions in April 2013 when he said in a statement, “Life comes down to who you love and who loves you back — government has no place in the middle.”
On Tuesday, Kirk gave an interview to the Huffington Post following his remarks to the crowd of activists explaining his support of gay marriage.
“After my stroke I learned a lot about love and death and I realized that life gets down to who loves you, who you love, and the government has nothing to do with that decision,” said Kirk, who suffered stroke in January 2012 at the age of 52.
He insisted that, as a Republican, his commitment to “freedom” is what lies at the root of his opinion on gay marriage.
“For me, the real legacy of our party is freedom on top of freedom,” Kirk explained. “To remember the Abraham Lincoln legacy that the only way to solve a freedom problem is to provide more freedom to people. That your basic right of association as an American is a right to associate with whomever you want, and the government should not be able to block that.”
Kirk insisted Tuesday on his mission “to stand as a national Republican who signed also the amicus brief on this marriage equality case,” adding that the legalization of same-sex marriage will make the U.S. a “much stronger country.”
“As a history nerd, you could make the case that we could’ve lost World War II but for one British gay mathematician named Alan Turing,” said Kirk. “And we are a much more powerful country because of our gay community.”
