Texas Rep. Compares Gay Marriage to Cancer

Texas' GOP state representative recently compared gay marriage to cancer, and said that gay people shouldn't marry because they can't have children, comparing it to the losing streak of the Phoenix Suns -- but one that would never end.

Lone Star Q reports that at a recent forum "Texas v. Same-Sex Marriage," hosted by the Texas Tribune in Austin, five panelists debated the issue of gay marriage. Among them were conservative Republican state Rep. Matt Krause; openly LGBT Democratic state Rep. Mary Gonzalez; pro-marriage equality GOP political strategist Mark McKinnon; Daniel McNeel Lane Jr., an attorney for same-sex couples challenging Texas' marriage bans; and Jonathan Saenz, president of the anti-gay group Texas Values.

Krause, a 34-year-old attorney from Tarrant County's District 93 who is set to begin his second two-year term in the Legislature, defended a legal brief he and 62 other GOP legislators supported that compared same-sex marriage to incest and pedophilia. Here's what he had to say when the moderator asked him to explain:

"I don't think any of the 63 of us thought, if this gets struck down, pedophiles are going to run our streets," said Krause. "That's not what we were saying, but I do think the important, fundamental part of that is that once you take the structures off marriage, between one man and one woman in the context of raising children, then you get into, what's the limiting principle with marriage?"

Predictably, Krause loosely referenced an example in Brazil of a county clerk who had allegedly sanctioned a "throuple, a three-person union." The only surprise is that he didn't extrapolate it to the next usual level: man marries dog.

Krause later suggested that kids raised by LGBT couples were more likely to have mental illness, suicide and tumors, also tied to children growing up without a father. When asked to produce the study, Krause was unable to do so.

Then, near the end of the forum, an audience member asked Krause to defend his argument that same-sex marriage should be banned because gays couldn't have kids (except, I guess, lesbians?). They asked him if married heterosexual couples who can't or choose not to have kids should be banned from marrying.

"Now, those people who are in marriage who choose not to do it or who can't have children, it just means that they are not able to meet that final goal of having children or that they choose not to, but everything else is in place for them to do that. By definition, with single-parent households or same-sex marriage households, you don't have that possibility in place, and so that makes a difference."

As an example, he cited the Phoenix Suns, a losing team that did not meet the ultimate goal of a basketball team of winning an NBA championship, but still had "everything in place, all the characteristics" to do so.