GOP senator's anti-gay comments fuel calls for his resignation

[FunkSoulBrother]

April 23, 2003
BY GREG WRIGHT

WASHINGTON--Two Democratic groups Tuesday demanded that Sen. Rick Santorum step down as the Republican Party's top communicator in the Senate because of what they consider anti-gay remarks.

A leading gay Republican organization said it could call for his ouster as well.

But the Pennsylvania Republican said an Associated Press story Monday in which he compared gays to bigamists, polygamists, adulterers and people who commit incest was misleading.

''My comments should not be misconstrued in any way as a statement on individual lifestyles,'' Santorum said Tuesday in a prepared statement.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Commission and the Democratic National Committee demanded Santorum resign as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. The Log Cabin Republicans said they may ask for his resignation unless Santorum makes a full apology and supports equal rights for all Americans.

The Log Cabin Republicans represent 10,000 gay Republicans, and the group has chapters in more than 40 major U.S. cities.

''It was entirely inadequate,'' Patrick Guerriero, the Log Cabin Republicans' executive director, said about Santorum's statement. ''We have called for a full apology--a full taking back of his comments from yesterday.''

But the conservative Concerned Women for America group and its affiliate, the Culture and Family Institute, rushed to Santorum's defense.

''I'm hoping [Santorum's case] will alert people to the threat that gay activism poses to freedom of speech and freedom of religion,'' said Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute. ''This has got to stop--this idea that if you are not pro-gay you can't hold public office.''

The Associated Press interviewed Santorum about a pending Supreme Court decision. That ruling will decide whether Texas' anti-sodomy law violates gay people's right to have sex in their homes.

Santorum, 44, said he is worried that laws against bigamy and incest and other state sexual practice laws could be overturned if the court rules the Texas statute is unconstitutional. But Santorum said he believes all people are equal under the Constitution.

Bush and Republican leaders would not comment Tuesday on Santorum.

Gannett News Service

beep

 

[Jointpleasure]

He could bend over and take it up the ol brown hole and it still wouldn't matter. Any apology he could construe wouldn't be enough. The big picture is the democrats wanting another republican out. He said nothing wrong in the context he said it in. Enough said

 

[radiofreecostarica]

The big picture is the democrats wanting another republican out.

Would this be considered similar to the mysterious death of Paul Welstone and family?

 

[Jointpleasure]

Please expand further radio, I'd love to here it.

 

[Jointpleasure]

here = hear

 

How stupid.

 

[kayaman+]

True outandup it was dumb to compromise himself like that. Politicians know they have to be careful with how they phrase things.

 

I hate to admit it but this is one where I have to agree with the left. At least as far as it concerns a persons privacy. When it comes to government LESS IS MORE--period. Stay the fuk out of the homo's bedroom. Personally, if I were born a female, I KNOW I would be a lesbian.

As far as asking for Santorum's head. PLEEEEZE! Clinton's buffoonery squashed any notion that a politician should lose his job over personal morality for decades to come.

 

Gays can do what they want and the senator can say what he wants.

 

The senator said nothing more than members of the supreme court have said in the past.

This is another example of attack the republican. it's simple tear down your republican opponent because democrats have nothing to offer.

 

Sen. Rick Santorum never used the words "gay" or "homosexual."

 

FF,
You are correct. The reporter kinda added that part. The reporter is also married to a well known liberal. The Senator still has the right to believe homosexuality is wrong.

 

[FunkSoulBrother]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>The Senator still has the right to believe homosexuality is wrong<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

He has the right to believe that Aryans are the Master Race too, but people should sure as hell call for his resignation. No one is questioning his right.

 

I think this is a good debate, meaning - Is there "The Right to Privacy" in the US Constitution?

 

>FF,
>You are correct.

Something that is not reported! Many people believe he said "Gay."

 

[FunkSoulBrother]

Here is the full unedited interview so people can draw their own conclusions.

April 23, 2003 | An unedited section of the Associated Press interview, taped April 7, with Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. Words that couldn't be heard clearly on the tape are marked (unintelligible).

AP: If you're saying that liberalism is taking power away from the families, how is conservatism giving more power to the families?

SANTORUM: Putting more money in their pocketbook is one. The more money you take away from families is the less power that family has. And that's a basic power. The average American family in the 1950s paid (unintelligible) percent in federal taxes. An average American family now pays about 25 percent.

The argument is, yes, we need to help other people. But one of the things we tried to do with welfare, and we're trying to do with other programs is, we're setting levels of expectation and responsibility, which the left never wanted to do. They don't want to judge. They say, Oh, you can't judge people. They should be able to do what they want to do. Well, not if you're taking my money and giving it to them. But it's this whole idea of moral equivalency. (unintelligible) My feeling is, well, if it's my money, I have a right to judge.

AP: Speaking of liberalism, there was a story in The Washington Post about six months ago, they'd pulled something off the Web, some article that you wrote blaming, according to The Washington Post, blaming in part the Catholic Church scandal on liberalism. Can you explain that?

SANTORUM: You have the problem within the church. Again, it goes back to this moral relativism, which is very accepting of a variety of different lifestyles. And if you make the case that if you can do whatever you want to do, as long as it's in the privacy of your own home, this "right to privacy," then why be surprised that people are doing things that are deviant within their own home? If you say, there is no deviant as long as it's private, as long as it's consensual, then don't be surprised what you get. You're going to get a lot of things that you're sending signals that as long as you do it privately and consensually, we don't really care what you do. And that leads to a culture that is not one that is nurturing and necessarily healthy. I would make the argument in areas where you have that as an accepted lifestyle, don't be surprised that you get more of it.

AP: The right to privacy lifestyle?

SANTORUM: The right to privacy lifestyle.

AP: What's the alternative?

SANTORUM: 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. Which, again, according to the world view sense is a perfectly fine relationship as long as it's consensual between people. If you view the world that way, and you say that's fine, you would assume that you would see more of it.

AP: Well, what would you do?

SANTORUM: What would I do with what?

AP: I mean, how would you remedy? What's the alternative?

SANTORUM: First off, I don't believe --

AP: I mean, should we outlaw homosexuality?

SANTORUM: I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts. As I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships. And that includes a variety of different acts, not just homosexual. I have nothing, absolutely nothing against anyone who's homosexual. If that's their orientation, then I accept that. And I have no problem with someone who has other orientations. The question is, do you act upon those orientations? So it's not the person, it's the person's actions. And you have to separate the person from their actions.

AP: OK, without being too gory or graphic, so if somebody is homosexual, you would argue that they should not have sex?

SANTORUM: We have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that has sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose. Because, again, I would argue, they undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family. And 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. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was created, it was created in Griswold -- Griswold was the contraceptive case -- and abortion. And now we're just extending it out. And the further you extend it out, the more you -- this freedom actually intervenes and affects the family. You say, well, it's my individual freedom. Yes, but it destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that's antithetical to strong, healthy families. Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.

Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality --

AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.

SANTORUM: And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society.

AP: Sorry, I just never expected to talk about that when I came over here to interview you. Would a President Santorum eliminate a right to privacy -- you don't agree with it?

SANTORUM: I've been very clear about that. The right to privacy is a right that was created in a law that set forth a (ban on) rights to limit individual passions. And I don't agree with that. So I would make the argument that with President, or Senator or Congressman or whoever Santorum, I would put it back to where it is, the democratic process. If New York doesn't want sodomy laws, if the people of New York want abortion, fine. I mean, I wouldn't agree with it, but that's their right. But I don't agree with the Supreme Court coming in

 

FSB, just as I said... He did NOT.

 

[FunkSoulBrother]

I'm not arguing. But he did say some mildly offensive things. I'm just posting the whole thing so neither one of us is telling people what to think. They can read for themselves.

 

"The Right to Privacy" is a slippery slope...

It could strike down incest laws. Say an 18yo girl having sex with her father and they both claim it consensual...?!

 

[FunkSoulBrother]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>"The Right to Privacy" is a slippery slope...

It could strike down incest laws. Say an 18yo girl having sex with her father and they both claim it consensual...?!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Is that really anyones business if they are both 18 and consenting, sick as it may be?