Today Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made an appearance on the daytime program "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," and the topic quickly turned to the issue of same-sex marriage. The issue arose after Ms. DeGeneres revealed on her show last Friday that she will be marrying her parter, Portia de Rossi. The marriage announcement came a day after the California Supreme Court overturned a ban on gay marriage. View video here.
Here's a partial transcript of the conversation:
JOHN McCAIN: My thoughts are that I think people should be able to enter into legal agreements and I think that is something we should encouraage, in particularly in the case of insurance and in other areas. Decisions need to be made. I just believe in the unique status of marriage, between a man and a woman, and I know we have a respectful disagreement on that issue.
ELLEN DeGENERES: Yeah, I think it is looked as and some people are saying the same that blacks and women did not have the right to vote. I mean women just got the right to vote 1920. Blacks didn't have the right to vote until 1870 and it just feels that there is an old way of thinking that we are not all the same. We are all the same people. You are no different than I am. Our love is the same. So, to me what it feels like just, you know, I speak for myself when someone says you can have a contract and you can still have insurance and you will get all that, it sounds to me like saying you can sit there but just can't sit there. It doesn't feel feel inclusive. It feels isolated. We aren't owed the same things.
Update: The episode aired today not yesterday, as my first paragraph describes.
