Audio: Gov. Walker Asked About Gay Marriage At WI Tourism Event

Governor Walker appeared this morning at a press conference announcing the release of a new ad by Milwaukee-born comedy director David Zucker. The ad promotes Wisconsin tourism, but when the governor asked the press corps for questions, one of the first was about his stance on gay marriage, which he had discussed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” over the weekend. (See the whole ad here.)

Transcript:

Gov. Scott Walker: I said, younger people I talked to, have a more open view on that than others do, and I said that instead of asking about expanding marriage under the state definition, people I talked to that have brought it up just questioned why the state was involved in defining marriage and not leaving it up to religious institutions? It wasn’t anything I’m advocating for. In this state, as you know, it’s not just the law, it’s into the constitution: It’s defined as one man and one woman, and I’m not proposing making any changes to that.

David Zucker: These questions are just distracting from the governor’s efforts to promote gay tourism! [laughter] Can you speak to that?

[unintelligible]

Reporter: Are you concerned that kind of stance can turn off some voters?

Walker: No, but my point that I raised on Meet The Press was that for most voters, regardless of what they feel about that issue, they’re more concerned about economic and fiscal issues. The best things people can do is talk about those issues, because those resonate regardless of where people stand on the other issues. But it does, in an interesting way, tie into tourism, because talking about tourism, talking about helping manufacturers, talking about helping agriculture: that’s what people elected me to do, they’re the things that people want me and other elected officials, here and in other states, to focus in on, and not be consumed on these other issues, which sometimes, some in some parts of politics talk about.