Texas Governor And Presumptive GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Perry Supports Federal Limit On Same Sex Marriage And Creationism

Texas Governor Rick Perry said Saturday he supports a federal limit on gay marriage and thinks a creator put life on Earth, The Associated Press reporting that the Republican governor is considering a GOP presidential bid and preparing for his first political stop ahead of the key early primary in South Carolina, where social issues always play well. But Perry told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that a presidential campaign would concentrate on jobs, not evolution or same-sex marriage. "The issue that is most important and most on people's minds is jobs," Perry said. "The candidate that Americans can get excited about, that truly understands that and can deliver that, I think, is a candidate that is really going to excite the imagination and get the juices flowing of the electorate out there," he said. Pointing to an increase in employment in his state, the governor said he's cracked the code for figuring out how to create jobs. Perry said the stimulus and job creation efforts of President Obama haven't worked. "I think we poured about $4 trillion down that rat hole and government has not created a job," he said. Supporters of the stimulus plan point out that jobs were saved because of the effort congressional Republicans opposed. And while Perry fought Washington over accepting a portion of Obama's economic stimulus package because of strings attached to the money, the state ended up using billions of the federal aid to balance the state budget, avoiding a possible financial disaster. The 61 year old Perry said social issues should be decided state by state and even remarked that New York's passage of gay marriage law was that state's business. Still, he said he would support a constitutional amendment that takes away the power of the states to decide who can get married. "Yes, sir, I would. I am for the federal marriage amendment," he said. "And that's about as sharp a point as I could put on it." Perry has used more than words to support tempering evolution taught in schools with creationism. In July, he appointed a biology teacher who disputes evolution as chairwoman of the Texas State Board of Education. In 2009, that 15-member board put the national spotlight on Texas in a debate that led to adopting standards encouraging schools to look at "all sides" of scientific theory. It now is considering educational materials that promote intelligent design even though a federal court ruled against teaching the theory that life on Earth is so complex that it must have come from an intelligent higher power. "There are clear indications from our people who have amazing intellectual capability that this didn't happen by accident and a creator put this in place," Perry said. "Now, what was his time frame and how did he create the earth that we know? I'm not going to tell you that I've got the answers to that," Perry said. "I believe that we were created by this all-powerful supreme being and how we got to today versus what we look like thousands of years ago, I think there's enough holes in the theory of evolution to, you know, say there are some holes in that theory."