After the Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday on a pair of watershed gay marriage cases, outgoing (yes!) Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., weighed in on the ruling, releasing a statement saying that “Marriage was created by the hand of God. No man, not even a Supreme Court, can undo what a holy God has instituted.” (Side note: Bachmann is still probably fuming that her home state recently legalized same-sex marriage.)

For some reason, a reporter later asked House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi during a news conference to opine on Bachmann’s statement. Pelosi, in turn, gave the ultimate reaction that could work for just about every future crazy thing Bachmann says.

“Who cares?” she asked, dismissing Bachmann’s musings with a shrug.

But wait, there’s more!

Another member of Congress, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., later addressed Bachmann’s statement and schooled her on this little thing called “separation of church and state” in the U.S. that she seems to consistently and conveniently forget about.

“We’re not dealing with religious belief in all these questions. We’re dealing with what the state or the federal government does,” Nadler said. “We have a separation of church and state in this country. So for government purposes, you can be married. The church may not recognize this. That’s their business. If you don’t want to recognize it from a religious point of view, it’s your business. No one is forcing anybody to get married. The point of the separation of church and state is that when we deal with public business and the … celebration of marriage by the state, the recognition by the state of who’s married is not a religious question.”

(h/t Gawker)

— Posted by Tracy Bloom.

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In this Article:
#belief#church and state#defense of marriage act#doma#gay marriage#michele bachmann#nancy pelosi#politics#prop 8#religion#supreme court