FRANKFORT, Ky. — Jack Conway has a message for anyone criticizing his decision to not defend Kentucky’s same-sex marriage ban.
“They do so at their own peril,” he said.
The Democratic Attorney General – who announced his candidacy for governor on Tuesday – made national headlines in March when he called a tearful news conference to announce he would not appeal a judge’s ruling forcing Kentucky to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.
Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear hired private attorneys to appeal the decision anyway, leaving Conway in a precarious political position for someone with aspirations for the Governor’s Mansion.
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But as public opinion continues to shift in favor of marriage equality, Kentucky voters will tire of rehashing his gay-marriage decision come November 2015, Conway said in an interview.
“I think in the fall of 2015 that will not be the big issue,” he said. “I think the voters will be more interested in building Kentucky’s future than in reliving all of that.”
Kentucky Republicans did not single out Conway’s gay-marriage decision on Tuesday, choosing instead to accuse Conway of adopting the policies and politics of Democratic President Barack Obama, who is widely unpopular in Kentucky.
“It should concern all Kentucky voters that a true liberal like Jack Conway, who has publicly embraced President Barack Obama and the views of his administration, wants to lead our Commonwealth,” Kentucky GOP chairman Steve Robertson said.
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Conway has been elected twice as Kentucky’s chief law enforcement officer, defeating his Republican opponents by comfortable margins.
But he has lost campaigns for federal offices. In 2002, Conway nearly unseated Republican U.S. Rep. Anne Northup in a hard-fought congressional race in the Louisville-area 3rd District.
In 2010, he lost a grueling campaign for the U.S. Senate to Republican Rand Paul.
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