Warren response to gay marriage question: ‘Just marry one woman’

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) received loud applause at a CNN town hall event Thursday night with a quip about opponents of same-sex marriage who say that marriage should be “between one man and one woman.”

In an exchange with an official with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) over what she would say to a supporter who said they were “old fashioned” and were against gay marriage, Warren responded with a joke that quickly took fire on Twitter.

{mosads}“Let’s say you’re on the campaign trail … and a supporter approaches you and says, ‘Senator, I’m old fashioned, and my faith teaches me that marriage is between one man and one woman,’ what is your response?” Morgan Cox, chairman of the HRC’s board of directors, asked Warren.

“Well, I’m going to assume it’s a guy who said that,” Warren began, to laughter. “And I’m gonna say, ‘Then just marry one woman. I’m cool with that.'”

After waiting for initial applause to die down, Warren interjected again: “Assuming you can find one.”

The second remark, which was met with surprised laughter from the audience and town hall moderator Chris Cuomo, quickly took off on social media and was retweeted by prominent LGBTQ accounts including that of Megan Rapinoe, captain of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team.

. @SenWarren this was https://t.co/EIsbcnXH0O

— Megan Rapinoe (@mPinoe) October 11, 2019

Warren has remained a top-tier candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in recent weeks, surging ahead of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in some polling and challenging former Vice President Joe Biden for the status of front-runner.

Her campaign announced the second-largest fundraising haul of the 2020 Democrats following the most recent filing deadline, trailing Sanders but leading Biden by nearly $10 million.