Colorado’s Attorney General John Suthers says politics and public opinion may be moving toward legalizing gay marriage around the country.
But Suthers says until the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage, he has no choice but to defend Colorado’s law against it.
Attorneys General in at least seven states have said they won’t fight legal challenges against marriage bans. They say the laws are unconstitutional. But Suthers says that’s not the attorney general’s job.
"I don’t get to decide what’s constitutional, they don’t get to decide what’s constitutional," Suthers says. "The courts decide what’s constitutional."
The Attorney General says he’s getting “hate mail” because of his stance on the state’s gay marriage ban.
"This is not an easy thing to do, to defend unpopular laws, but that’s the job of the attorney general," Suthers says. "And when they say, you know, this law’s unconstitutional – that’s not a decision that they get to make."
This week Kentucky became the most recent state whose Attorney General said he would not defend his state’s ban on same sex marriage.
