Whoops: Did a New Hampshire Congressional Candidate Plagiarize a Speech on Gay Marriage?
New Hampshire Republican congressional candidate Marilinda Garcia has a lot to say about gay marriage. Unfortunately, it appears she wasn’t the first one to say it.
Granite State Progress, a left-leaning advocacy site in New Hampshire, looked at Garcia’s 2012 speech against gay marriage — given to the New Hampshire state legislature — and compared it to a 2010 National Review editorial on the same topic.
Did she lift the text from National Review? You decide:
Garcia: Marriage exists to solve a problem. That problem is a societal problem that rises from sex between men and women, but not from sex between partners of the same gender. That problem is what to do about its generativity.
National Review: Marriage exists, in other words, to solve a problem that arises from sex between men and women but not from sex between partners of the same gender: what to do about its generativity.
Garcia: A man and a woman who unite biologically may or may not have children, depending on factors beyond their control, but the point is that a same-sex couple cannot thus unite.
National Review: A man and a woman who unite biologically may or may not have children depending on factors beyond their control; a same-sex couple cannot thus unite.
Garcia: The symbolic message of inclusion for same-sex couples in an institution that makes no sense for them would be coupled with another message, that marriage is about the desires of adults rather than the interests of children.
National Review: The symbolic message of inclusion for same-sex couples — in an institution that makes no sense for them — would be coupled with another message: that marriage is about the desires of adults rather than the interests of children.
Granite State Progress had more examples from the same speech.
Garcia’s campaign did not immediately return a call for comment. She’s trying to unseat Democratic incumbent Annie Kuster for the new Hampshire second district House seat.
If Garcia wasn’t the first person to say the words, she’s also not the first politician to be caught plagiarizing. Other political luminaries caught with their hand in the rhetorical cookie jar include Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), and Senator Joseph Walsh (D-MT).
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