As Obama Endorses Gay Marriage, Romney Affirms Opposition with Denver Stations

By Andrew Gauthier 

While President Obama was preparing to sit for an exclusive interview with ABC News, in which he would express his support for same-sex marriage, Mitt Romney was in Colorado, talking to local reporters.

Just hours before news broke of Obama’s gay marriage pronouncement, Romney affirmed his opposition to same-sex unions in interviews with reporters from a handful of Denver stations.

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On Tuesday night, Republicans in the Colorado state house of representatives blocked a bill that would have allowed same-sex civil unions, so on Wednesday reporters from KDVR, KUSA, and KCNC asked Romney to discuss his stance on the issue.

“I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name,” Romney told KDVR’s Jeremy Hubbard. “My view is the domestic partnership benefits, hospital visitation rights, and the like are appropriate but that the others are not” (video above).

Romney echoed this sentiment in an interview with KUSA political reporter Brandon Rittiman.

“I’m in favor of tradition marriage between a man and a woman,” Romney told Rittiman, “and I don’t favor civil union or gay marriage” (video below–around 2:50 mark).

Romney told CBS station KCNC that his position on the issue remains the same, as always.

“My position is the same on gay marriage as it’s been well, from the beginning, and that is that marriage is a relation between a man and a woman,” Romney told KCNC. “That’s the posture that I had as governor and I have that today.”

While all of the stations will no doubt be running Romney’s marriage sound bites during their newscasts tonight, Fox-affiliate KDVR acted quickly this afternoon and posted their clip online as news hit of Obama’s support for the issue.

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