From John at the Gay Advocacy. More about Rick Santorum -- Welcome To The Crzy House

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Date Posted: 22:16:41 04/30/03 Wed
Author: Markus
Subject: From John at the Gay Advocacy. More about Rick Santorum

'Santorum' is Latin for 'Bigot'

Yep, it's happened again. A right-wing bigot, wrapping himself in the mantle of God, has exposed himself for the intolerant wing-nut he really is. This time it's Rick Santorum, the Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, and the number 3 in the Republican Senate leadership.

Santorum's slip-up? Telling the Associated Press that he equates homosexuality with incest, polygamy, adultery and bigamy. (Happy Easter to you too, Senator.)

Specifically, here's what Santorum told AP: "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."

Santorum went on to say that permitting gays to marry would be "the death knell of the American family." And lest I forget, he also said that the Catholic pedophile scandal where priests were raping minors was your typical run-of-the-mill homosexual relationship: "In this case, what we're talking about, basically, is priests who were having sexual
relations with post-pubescent men. We're not talking about priests with 3 year olds or 5 year olds. We're talking about a basic homosexual relationship."

Understandably, a lot of people got more than a bit upset with the good Senator from Pennsylvania. But even better than Santorum's comments was his "apology." In response to the growing calls for his head he put out a statement saying that the comments were actually not bigoted since
they were made in the context of expressing his opinion about a Supreme Court case.

Huh?

Yep, apparently, now there's a Supreme Court exemption to being a bigot.

By this logic, Trent Lott's only mistake was failing to mention Brown v. Board of Education while longing for the good ole days of segregation.

Not to mention, is Santorum suggesting that it wouldn't be bigoted for someone to express the opinion that Loving v. Virginia was wrongly decided? (That was the Supreme Court case that threw out laws banning inter-marriage between blacks and whites.)

Not surprisingly, America's Taliban in the radical right entered the fray to say that Santorum's critics were being "intolerant" by calling attention to the Senator's bigotry. But of course, wouldn't that perverted logic make the radical right intolerant for calling us intolerant? No one ever accused them of being driven by a consistent morality.

Anyway, Senate Majority Leader Frist defended Santorum as a "man of inclusion" and so now has President Bush. The really troubling thing about this episode is that when Trent Lott insinuated support for segregation, he lost his leadership job. When Congressman Jim Moran slighted Jewish-Americans, he too lost his leadership position. But when Senator Santorum suggests that gays are akin to incest - and, don't forget, he defended throwing adult gay couples into jail - the Republican leadership simply turns the other way.

In the end, I suppose none of this should surprise us. Rick Santorum has been a far-right jerk since the day he was elected. As for the Republican congressional leadership, they have a love-hate relationship (love the votes, hate the voter) with radical right uber-Christians that requires them to play suck up every few months. And President Bush, well, a profile in pro-gay courage he ain't. (Of course, I'd be remiss not to mention the Republican good-guys who stood up to Santorum on this
issue. Senators Snowe of Maine, Chafee of Rhode Island, and McCain of Arizona all rose to our defense.)

In the end, we probably ought to thank both Santorum and his defenders in the radical right, the Congress and the Oval Office. It's once thing for us to call them all bigots, but it's quite another for them to step up to the plate and blatantly prove it for all of America to see. You can't buy that kind of publicity.

The title of this article - 'Santorum' is Latin for 'Bigot' - is a paraphrase of a quote attributed to an anti-Santorum Senator back in the 1990s. In that quote, Santorum was not referred to as a bigot, but rather, as an asshole.

More on Santorum (and thanks to Scott Miller for accumulating a bunch of these links):

Signorile on Santorum

Santorum sees gays as "a threat" (The Guardian

Gay groups ticked at Santorum

Wash Post reports on Santorum controversy

Reuters on Santorum

Santorum's Non-Apology

CNN: Santorum defends comments

Wash Post editorial on Santorum

Philly Inquirer: Santorum ought to shut up

Boston Globe on Santorum

Dan Savage on Santorum

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