Scott Walker at the Western Conservative Summit. Walker goes mum on same-sex marriage

On Friday, Scott Walker warned that “five unelected justices” on the Supreme Court had threatened the “millennia”-old institution of marriage by extending it to same-sex couples. In a statement that lapped many of his more cautious rivals, he called for a constitutional amendment allowing states to decide the issue for themselves.

But barely a day later, in front of an audience of 4,000 conservatives in Denver on Saturday night — a Western Conservative Summit that had been ripping the court and lamenting same-sex marriage for two full days — Walker didn’t mention either.


After running through his stump speech without mentioning the Supreme Court’s recent controversial rulings, Walker had another chance with radio host Hugh Hewitt, who asked the likely presidential candidate if he’s “all-in” when it comes to defending religious liberty.

“Yes,” Walker replied, before launching into a brief boilerplate answer about the importance of freedom of religion.

It marked a sharp departure from Walker’s own rhetoric, but also from many of his primary rivals who seized on the right’s frustration with the court to rally conservatives.

Ted Cruz in Iowa on Saturday proposed that Supreme Court justices face periodic retention elections so that conservatives can hold them accountable. Less prominent candidates, from Mike Huckabee to Carly Fiorina to Rick Santorum, devoted large portions of their remarks to the Denver crowd to their fury at the court.

Huckabee told the audience that the court was rewriting natural law. Fiorina quoted Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent: “Democracy is dead,” she said. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry pointed to his own record of appointing state judges and noted “we don’t do squishy in Texas.” Santorum suggested that the ruling was just the beginning, pondering whether recognizing same-sex marriages might lead to state-sanctioned polygamy.

“Marriage is no longer about having and raising children,” Santorum said. “It’s about two people who are in love — or, as I think we will see in the future, more than two people who are in love.”

Walker’s initial response to the ruling Friday would have fit in.

“I believe this Supreme Court decision is a grave mistake,” he said in a statement. “Five unelected judges have taken it upon themselves to redefine the institution of marriage, an institution that the author of this decision acknowledges ‘has been with us for millennia.’”

Walker’s decision to eschew the issue tailor-made for his audience seemed particularly forced when Hewitt teed it up for him.

Asked how he’d ensure his judicial appointments were originalist conservatives, Walker gave a lengthy explanation about his “three litmus tests” for nominating judges in Wisconsin — none of which included conservatism — and on the question of how he’d fight for religious liberty, Walker answered without referencing the court’s same-sex marriage ruling but with platitudes.

“The very first thing that the Founders said should be amended to the Constitution was guaranteeing the freedom of religion,” he said. “We need a president who’s going to stand up and defend that each and every day.”

Walker’s call for a constitutional amendment on Friday earned him plaudits from some conservative activists; it also put some space between himself and Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, both of whom expressed disappointment in the court’s decision but stopped short of backing a constitutional amendment. (Bush supported such an amendment a decade ago; Rubio denies ever having supported one, but that contradicts a 2010 voter guide from a leading social conservative group, which indicates he did.)

Walker’s promise to fight marked a shift from last year, when he told reporters in Wisconsin that the issue was settled after the state’s same-sex marriage ban was overturned.

“For us, it’s over in Wisconsin,” Walker said last October, according to The Associated Press. “The federal courts have ruled that this decision by this court of appeals decision is the law of the land and we will be upholding it.”

Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.