Recent comments in Iowa plus a major recent hire signal that Marco Rubio will continue to try to straddle the line on marriage equality.

“The debate is about how do you define an institution, the institution of marriage, which has been defined the same way for all of human history,” he said at the Presidential Family Forum in Des Moines on Friday. “That’s what the debate is about. It’s not about discriminating against anyone. The debate is about how do you define an institution.”

This rhetoric is unsurprising. This month, the Florida senator and presidential brought on Eric Teetsel as his director of faith outreach. Teetsel was previously the head of the socially conservative Manhattan Declaration, an inter-denominational push against abortion and same-sex marriage.

Friday’s comments and the selection of Teetsel to be Rubio’s point man with evangelical voters may offset some of the flak he’s been catching with social conservatives for his association with Paul Singer, a hedge fund billionaire and staunch backer of marriage rights for same-sex couples. At the same time, Teetsel’s hardline stance on social issues — he’s compared homosexuality to slavery, for example — could prove problematic for Rubio should he make it to the general election.