Appearing Sunday on ABC's This Week,
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was asked to expand
upon his stand on marriage equality.
Host George Stephanopoulos asked Trump
to reconcile two seemingly contradictory statements he made this week
on the subject.
On
Fox
News Sunday, Trump said that he would nominate conservative
Supreme Court justices whom he hoped would reverse the court's
finding that gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to
marry. On Friday, he told Sue O'Connell of the New England Cable
Channel that Americans
can expect more “forward motion” on gay rights when he's
president.
“I'm talking about bringing people
together,” he told Stephanopoulos.
“But you want them to overturn …
that Supreme Court decision?”
“I would appoint them and we will see
how they will vote.”
“But how does that move us to
equality?”
“We'll find out,” Trump answered.
“I mean we're going to find out. There's a lot of people that want
to see that. More important than anything else to me, this country
is so divided right now.”
“But a majority of Americans now
support the idea of gay marriage. Wouldn't it be divisive to try to
overturn it?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“It has [already] been determined and
we will see what happens. We're going to look at judges. They've
got to be great judges. They've got to be conservative judges.
We're going to see how they stand depending on what their views are.
But that would be my preference.”
“Where do you want them to stand?”
“I would prefer that they stand
against it, but we'll see what happens. It depends on the judge.”
“And how does that move us toward
equality for gays and lesbians?”
“Look, George, it's very simple.
We're going to bring our country together. We're going to unify our
country. We're going to do whatever we have to do. I'm going to put
the absolute best judges in position. We're going to see what their
views are. I will make the determination at that time.”
“But what do you say to gays and
lesbians who think that overturning that decision is not unifying our
country, it's dividing our country?”
“I think I understand what they're
saying and we're going to see what happens,” Trump answered.