Thursday, March 28, 2024

Rubio at Iowa’s Faith and Freedom Coalition Summit

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) (photo credit: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0)
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) (photo credit: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0)

We will be posting transcripts on what candidates in Iowa said about life, marriage, and religious liberty at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Summit that took place on Saturday.  Here is Sen. Marco Rubio on life:

…ours was not founded on a political idea. Our nation was founded on a spiritual principle. And here is the spiritual principle it was founded on: That every single human being was born with rights given to them by God. To life, to liberty, and to pursue happiness. This is a principle that sometimes we—I include myself who have only known this country—may take for granted.  But in most places on Earth, they believe that your rights come from your government and from your laws. But ours was founded on the principle that your rights come from your Creator and from God…

On marriage:

You cannot have a strong country without strong people. And you cannot have strong people without strong values. The thing is: no one is born with strong values. Values have to be taught to you. They are taught to you in the most basic cell of society: the family. And they have to be reinforced by the voluntary groups and churches in our community that help parents raise our children.

The social and economic well being of our people are inextricably linked. And it should not surprise us that our country struggles economically when families are falling apart. It should not surprise us to learn that the single greatest contributor of poverty today is the disintegration of American families. And we need leaders that understand this fundamental truth, even if government’s role in it might be limited, it certainly is important. We should never have any policies that stand in the way of families. We should never have any policies that stand in the way of marriage.

And in this whole debate about the definition of marriage, I remind everyone: That marriage as an institution existed before even government itself. That the institution of marriage as one man and one woman existed before our laws existed. And that thousands of years of human history teach us a very simple truth: the ideal setting of where to raise children and instill in them values is when a mother and a father, married to each other, living in the same home, raise those children together.

On religious liberty:

Rubio said nothing at this forum.

Joshua Pinho works for American Principles in Action.

More From The Pulse