The Associated Press (by way of washingtonpost.com) has reported that Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) today, in an interview with the AP in which he discussed the expected decision later this summer from the Supreme Court on a case involving consensual homosexual sex in a private home in Texas, compared consensual gay sex in the home to incest and adultery, and went on to say that he believes there is no constitutional right to privacy:
“If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything… All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family. And that’s sort of where we are in today’s world, unfortunately. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn’t exist, in my opinion, in the United States Constitution.”
Fortunately, even the Log Cabin Republicans are taking a big step back and calling him on the carpet for this one:
“There is nothing conservative about allowing law enforcement officials to enter the home of any American and arrest them for simply being gay,” said Log Cabin Republican Executive Director Patrick Guerriero. “I am deeply troubled that Sen. Santorum would divide America in a time of war. Mainstream America is embracing tolerance and inclusion. I am appalled that a member of the United States Senate leadership would advocate dividing Americans with ugly, hate-filled rhetoric.”
This is the same Santorum, a self-described “compassionate conservative” and as the head of the Republican Conference the third highest ranking Senate Republican, who was quoted as saying to the Washington Post last November that he supports a provision that would allow faith-based groups that receive federal funding for community service programs to discriminate against gays and lesbians in hiring–even in cases where local and state non-discrimination laws are already in place. “I will make that stand,” said Santorum. (from a news release from the Human Rights Campaign, November 25, 2002.)
In January of this year, the Philadelphia CityPaper ran an opinion piece entitled “A Friend to the End: Rick Santorum’s Questionable Defense of Trent Lott,” in which the author noted:
Our senator [Santorum] went on national television and claimed that Lott was “a man of tremendous integrity, a deep faith, [and] someone who believes all men are created equal.” He added that the furor would subside when his colleagues “reflect and put things in better context,” a dubious statement given the context of Lott’s terrible civil rights record.
As the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, Santorum originally opposed even calling a meeting of Senate Republicans to discuss Lott’s remarks and potential replacement, telling NBC’s Tim Russert, “It’s not under our rules to allow me to do that.” A few days later, under pressure from his more moderate colleagues, Santorum reversed himself by calling a meeting for Jan. 6. But Santorum continued to defend Lott, even as more evidence of Lott’s poor civil rights record came out, telling reporters on Dec. 18, “I’m more and more convinced that Senator Lott should stay.”
Santorum didn’t stop at defending Lott. He told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that “he personally never viewed Thurmond, who just retired as the Senate’s longest serving member, as a segregationist.”
No wonder, since the three of them seem cut from the same cloth.
This guy is really scary, though at least we know where he stands and that he’s not our friend.
[Addendum: 2003-04-22 14:24: Gene Cowan also had something to say about this article]
[Addendum: 2003-04-22 14:29: So did T. Kevin’s Synaptic Discharge]