Pearce decries same-sex marriage in video
Recording from 2008 Senate race
SANTA FE — U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, speaking at an event 10 years ago, said samesex marriage was a step away from “polymorphism” — or allowing one person to marry many people, as he defined it.
And he broached the idea that one person might try to “marry everybody in California with AIDS” as a way to help them get health insurance or other benefits.
The comments are contained in an online video published on YouTube in October 2008, when Pearce was running for U.S. Senate and only a few states had authorized gay marriage.
A Supreme Court ruling in 2015 made it legal nationwide. The New Mexico Supreme Court had legalized same-sex marriage in 2013.
The Huffington Post reported on the Pearce video Mon-
day. The news organization said the video had been identified by the American Bridge 21st Century PAC, a group that conducts opposition research on Republicans.
Pearce, a Hobbs Republican, is running for governor this year.
One of his potential opponents, fellow U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, an Albuquerque Democrat, immediately blasted Pearce for the remarks and called them “deeply offensive.”
In the video, Pearce is speaking through a hand-held microphone, but the setting isn’t clear.
He tells the unseen audience that he doesn’t believe the government should “tell anybody how to live their life.” But there could be “serious downstream effects” from gay marriage, he said.
People in Washington, D.C., already expect the courts to authorize gay marriage, Pearce said.
“The next step, then, is polymorphism, where one marries many,” he said.
Then Pearce mentioned that access to benefits could be an issue.
“You can imagine that one person would say, ‘All these people in California don’t have access to AIDS treatment. I’m going to marry everybody,’” Pearce said in the video. “They might say this to themselves, ‘I’m going to marry everybody in California with AIDS,’ and suddenly they’ll be able to access maybe the benefit program, the health insurance that the single person has.”
Pearce’s campaign manager wouldn’t say whether the comments reflect Pearce’s current thinking on the issue or identify the 2008 event at which Pearce was speaking.
“National Democrats and partisan bloggers are desperately using a 10-year-old video to cover up the fact that Michelle Lujan Grisham is discriminating against transgender people and is subject to a congressional ethics complaint,” Pearce campaign manager Paul Smith said.
In December, a transgender woman who had worked as an intern for Lujan Grisham accused the congresswoman of discrimination. Lujan Grisham denied the allegation and said she didn’t even know the woman was transgender.
Lujan Grisham is one of three Democrats seeking the gubernatorial nomination. Also running are former television executive Jeff Apodaca and state Sen. Joseph Cervantes.