Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay tells
Newsmax TV he is ready to fight the U.S. Supreme Court tooth and nail should it rule that same-sex marriages must be recognized nationwide — including staging acts of civil disobedience.
"Rick Santorum is absolutely right. If this Supreme Court rules against marriage, all hell is going to break loose," DeLay, a Texas Republican who represented the Lone Star State's 22nd District, said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
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"In fact, I'm a signatory of a document that basically says you can rule any way you want to, but we're going to stand for marriage even if it takes civil disobedience."
DeLay did not outline exactly what forms of civil disobedience would be used, but insisted that a Supreme Court ruling is not necessarily enforceable.
"A ruling by the Supreme Court is nothing but an opinion if the legislative branch and the executive branch do not enforce it," he told Steve Malzberg.
"Not only that, if the states would just invoke the 10th Amendment and assert their sovereignty, they can defy a ruling by the Supreme Court. It's in the Constitution. We can tell the court what cases they can hear.
"I passed six bills out of the House limiting the jurisdiction of the courts saying you can't hear a case on prayer in schools or you can't hear a case on a nativity scene on the county lawn."
The Supreme Court is set to rule on whether same-sex marriage is a constitutional right and many legal experts believe the nation's top jurists will invalidate gay marriage bans because five of them voted to advance gay rights as recently as 2013.
DeLay said if that happens, the United States will be bucking the longstanding and historical definition of marriage.
"For all of time, not just Christians and Jews, but all religions have defined marriage as one man and one woman to come together as one and have children and raise those children," he said.
"You cannot redefine it. It is set in stone. You can call it something else and create civil unions, but you cannot redefine marriage. Plus, this is about religious liberty. Look at what's already happened and the Supreme Court has not ruled yet.
"We have a photographer losing their business, a baker losing her business, a florist losing her business because the government and its heavy hand came down on them because under their religious tenets and religious standing, they could not bring themselves to service a same-sex marriage ceremony … This is about religious liberty more than anything else."