GRAND RAPIDS, MI - When Vote Equal's new president visited MLive's hub last week, on the eve of a march through downtown Grand Rapids, he said ousting U.S. Rep. Justin Amash is one the group's goals as it strives to build a "progressive" base of support for putting a same-sex marriage proposal on Michigan's 2016 ballot.

Yet, Chris Silva also noted that Amash’s ideological peculiarities could complicate Vote Equal’s agenda.

“We’d like to get rid of Justin Amash,” Silva said. “But if he comes out and talks for marriage equality, it’d be really hard…it would change things a little bit.”

RELATED: Throw out federal definition of marriage altogether, Amash says ahead of Supreme Court hearings

So what exactly is Amash coming out and saying this week as the U.S. Supreme Court debates gay-marriage law? Amash on Monday during an American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan forum in Grand Rapids said he wants the federal government to stay out of marriage, and he supports repealing the definition of marriage in the Defense of Marriage Act and leaving the matter to states to decide.

Then, he tweeted Tuesday that the "Real threat to traditional marriage & religious liberty is government, not gay couples who love each other & want to spend lives together."

Amash's perspective on the one hand has drawn the ire of Gary Glenn, the anti-gay marriage president of the American Family Association of Michigan. On the other hand, Silva's not impressed with the Cascade Township Republican's talk, either.

“This seems like a convenient way for Congressman Amash to use his libertarian ideology as political coverage,” Silva said. “Amash is lacking the courage or maybe pragmatism to really stand for marriage equality.

“It’s good because the rhetoric’s changing out of a Republican congressman out of Grand Rapids: He’s not seeing (same-sex marriage) as an assault on family. But it doesn’t really do a lot today for all these people who really need these DOMA benefits.

"We’re not all lining up to get Justin Amash bumper stickers.”

RELATED: Meet the new president of Grand Rapids group pushing same-sex marriage

Glenn issued a statement today suggesting that “Amash's position would immediately impose on American taxpayers the higher tax burden of paying to provide federally-funded benefits to the new category of beneficiaries created by states that have redefined marriage to include homosexual couples.

“If the Supreme Court this summer redefines marriage in all 50 states, the tax burden will grow even larger. And that will only open wide the door to demands by polygamists and bisexuals that marriage be redefined again to allow them to marry multiple spouses, all of whom will of course demand that they too have a ‘right’ to federal benefits paid for by American taxpayers,” Glenn stated.

MLive readers have been sharing their thoughts on same-sex marriage, and on Amash's comments, on The Grand Rapids Press Facebook page.

Equality Michigan, a Detroit-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group, issued a statement this afternoon that praises Amash's comments and tries to identify them as part of a trend of conservatives moving toward support of same-sex marriage.

"Equality Michigan agrees with Rep. Amash that the government should get out the business of promoting hate and get back to promoting a culture of compassion and support," said Emily Dievendorf, the group's director of policy.

"We applaud Amash's bravery in coming out in opposition to DOMA and we look forward to working with him and other elected officials making an effort to come out on the right side of history on this important issue."

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