“Obergefell, like Roe vs. Wade, ignored two centuries of our nation’s history,” Cruz said in a clip posted on his YouTube channel for his podcast. “Marriage was always a problem left to the states. We saw states before Obergefell, some states were moving to allow gay marriage, other states moved to allow civil unions. There were different standards that the states were adopting “.
He added: “The way the Constitution established for you to move forward in this position is to convince your fellow citizens, that if you succeed in convincing your fellow citizens, your state would change the laws to reflect those views. In Obergefell, the court said. , “No, we know this better than you do, and now all states must sanction and allow gay marriage.”
“I think that decision was clearly wrong when it was decided,” Cruz said. “It was the excess of the court.”
His statements come weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ruling that there was no longer a federal constitutional right to abortion. Cruz, a longtime opponent of same-sex marriage who believes the problem should be left to the states, echoed the views expressed by many conservatives, including Judge Clarence Thomas, that the Court Supreme Court should review previous judgments such as Obergefell v. Hodges.
In a separate opinion on last month’s abortion decision, Thomas explicitly asked the court to reconsider its previous decisions that removed state restrictions on contraceptives, state bans on sodomy and state bans on same-sex marriage. sex.
“Since any substantive decision in the due process is ‘demonstrably erroneous,'” Thomas wrote, “we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ set forth in these precedents.”
CNN’s Tierney Sneed contributed to this report.