Gordon Howie on Civil Rights

Government shouldn't redefine marriage

Howie: Strongly Agree

Government imposed quotas are wrong

A: Strongly oppose - government imposed quotas are wrong and counterproductive.

Marriage is a religious institution between a man & a woman

A: Strongly oppose - Marriage is a religious institution between a man and a woman.

Gays and lesbians choose to live outside the laws of God

Howie is running on a socially conservative platform to bring God back into public life, and believes homosexuality is immoral. But the candidate who regularly bashes Republican nominee Mike Rounds for being insufficiently conservative is actually to Rounds' left on one particular question of gay rights.

Howie supports civil unions for same-sex couples, while Rounds said he doesn't.

Civil unions and equal rights for gays, but not marriage

"I think it's silly not to allow those kind of things," Howie said of letting same-sex couples file taxes jointly, have hospital visitation rights and other privileges currently limited to married couples.

Rounds, like Howie, said he believes "marriage is between a man and a woman." Beyond that, Rounds said romantic partners can enter into contracts to do things that already are legal but opposes changing the law to allow same-sex couples privileges currently reserved for married couples.

[One pundit noted], "Very conservative people could come to endorse civil unions by breaking it up and looking at the legal elements of it and saying, okay, we're not going to discriminate against them, and this is a different status, but that doesn't mean they're married."

No affirmative action in public employment or colleges

Howie indicated support of the following principles regarding employment and Affirmative Action .
• Reduce state government regulations on the private sector in order to encourage investment and economic expansion.
• Q: Should race, ethnicity or gender be taken into account in state agencies' decisions on:
• Public employment?
  No.
• State college and university admissions?
  No.
• State contracting?
  No.