Gov. Rick Perry

Social conservatives are uneasy about Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s comments last week in Aspen, Colo., when the likely GOP presidential candidate said he was OK with New York’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage because it’s a states’ rights issue.

Real Clear Politics reports that while conservatives are generally federalists who support the idea of leaving it to the states on many issues, social conservatives favor a Federal Marriage Amendment.

“His comments were inartful and disappointing,” Gary Bauer, president of American Values, told Real Clear Politics. “The 10th Amendment and states’ rights is very important to conservatives, but it’s not our highest value. There are some things so fundamentally wrong that we have not left those things up to the states.”

Oran Smith, president of an anti-gay group in the early primary state of South Carolina, told Real Clear Politics that Perry’s comments could mean he is also “slippery” on other issues (gee, ya think?). And our old friend Bob Van der Plaats, president of the Iowa Family Leader, said he hopes Perry’s comments were “more of an education issue … .” LOL.

Even Bryan Fischer, a spokesman for the American Family Association — the anti-gay hate group that is funding Perry’s day of prayer in Houston on Aug. 6 — told The Texas Independent that Perry “missed an opportunity here for him to stress the importance of natural marriage and the negative consequences for children when same-sex marriages are legitimized.”

It’s always amusing when anti-gay politicians are criticized by their own base for not being anti-gay enough, but we’re here to tell you that in Perry’s case, social conservatives have nothing to worry about.

So rest easy, bigots, because he’s probably just working on a Plan B: If he’s ever outed as a gay man, he wants to be able to move to state where he can marry his partner.