Persistent
Conflict for Gays and G.O.P.
New
York Times, April 22, 2003
229 W. 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036
Fax: 212-556-3622
Email: letters@nytimes.com
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
WASHINGTON—In the long and
conflicted history between gays and Republicans, Senator Rick
Santorum—caught in a storm over his remarks equating homosexuality with
polygamy and incest—is writing a new chapter.
Eight years ago, Dick Armey, then the House majority
leader, referred to Representative Barney Frank, the prominent gay lawmaker,
as Barney Fag. Three years later, Senator Trent Lott infuriated gays when he
likened them to kleptomaniacs.
Now it is Mr. Santorum, of Pennsylvania, who is being
accused of having a tin ear—or worse. The uproar stems from an Associated
Press article, published on Monday, quoting Mr. Santorum’s views on a
Supreme Court challenge to a Texas law banning sodomy.
“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 incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to
anything,” he said, using the term “consensual” to refer to gays,
adding, “All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable,
traditional family.”
This latest episode of a Republican lawmaker saying
inflammatory things about gays underscores the party’s struggle over the
issue of homosexuality. While lawmakers in both parties often commit verbal
gaffes—Mr. Lott lost his position as majority leader last year after making
comments that were criticized as racially insensitive—the most delicate
political tap dances seem to involve remarks about gays.
Republicans are not the only ones making them. Last year,
a Democratic candidate for Senate in South Carolina, Alex Sanders, created a
stir when he said Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, “moved
in with two gay men and a Shih Tzu.”
Still, with their emphasis on traditional family values,
Republicans more often find themselves at odds with gays. Former Senator Jesse
Helms of North Carolina once called homosexuality “sickening.” And Senator
James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma once compared a gay business executive who had
been nominated to an ambassadorship by President Bill Clinton to David Duke, a
onetime Ku Klux Klan leader.
Steve Gunderson, who revealed he is gay while serving in
Congress as a Republican representative from rural Wisconsin, said a “lack
of awareness and education” was to blame for comments that are criticized as
insensitive.
But David Smith, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign,
a group that advocates gay rights, said such remarks persisted because
politicians “don’t pay a big enough price.”
Some, like Mr. Frank, see politics at work. He argued
that the comments were not slips of the tongue by naïve lawmakers, but rather
efforts by Republicans to appeal to their conservative base.
Of Mr. Santorum, Mr. Frank said: “He knows exactly what
he’s doing. He’s getting the right-wing vote.”
Today, Mr. Santorum defended himself. “I do not need to
give an apology,” he told the Fox News Channel, adding, “I think this is a
legitimate public policy discussion.”
The Associated Press released unedited transcripts of its
reporters’ April 7 interview with Mr. Santorum. “In every society, the
definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality,”
Mr. Santorum said then. “That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not,
you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.”
Gay rights groups, outraged, demanded the senator resign
as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, a job that puts him third in
line behind the majority leader. Top Democrats, including the party’s Senate
leader, Tom Daschle, and Terry McAuliffe, the party chairman, added their
criticism.
A spokesman for President Bush, who has avoided
alienating gay groups, ducked a question about Mr. Santorum. Log Cabin
Republicans, a gay Republican group, called for the senator to “take back
his divisive and alarming comments.”
“I’ve had better days,” Patrick Guerriero, the
group’s executive director, said with a sigh.
Mr. Santorum perhaps has reason to distance himself from
gays—or reach out to conservatives. Earlier this month, as the chief Senate
sponsor of President Bush’s religion-based initiative, he aroused the ire of
conservatives by stripping out a provision that would have helped religious
groups get government grants. In fact, the Human Rights Campaign went so far
as to praise Mr. Santorum in a news release.
In recent weeks the sensitivity of gays’ relationship
with Republicans came into the spotlight after Marc Racicot, chairman of the
Republican National Committee, met with the Human Rights Campaign. The session
enraged the conservative Family Research Council, whose president, Kenneth
Connor, said Mr. Racicot was holding “secret meetings with the homosexual
lobby.”
Today, Mr. Connor came to Mr. Santorum’s defense,
saying, “I think the senator’s remarks are right on the mark.”
Throughout the day, Democrats continued to make hay of
the Santorum affair, especially Democrats who are running for president and
competing for donations and support from gays.
Senator John Edwards of North Carolina called the
comments “disturbing and inappropriate.” Former Gov. Howard Dean of
Vermont called them “insensitive and divisive.” Senator John Kerry of
Massachusetts said, “These comments take us backwards in America.”
Likewise, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
wasted no time in criticizing Mr. Santorum, and then went a step further,
calling on Senator Arlen Specter, a moderate Republican from Pennsylvania who
is expected to face a tough re-election battle, to repudiate Mr. Santorum’s
remarks.
In December, when Senator Lott was under fire, Mr.
Specter came to Mr. Lott’s defense. Today, Democratic committee officials
urged reporters to “ask Senator Specter his views on the Santorum
controversy.”
Mr. Specter said he accepted Mr. Santorum’s
explanation. “I have known Rick Santorum for the better part of two
decades,” he said in a statement, “and I can say with certainty he is not
a bigot.”
Soon, Mr. Santorum will have a chance to demonstrate just
that. The Log Cabin Republicans are holding their convention next month. They
are planning to invite Mr. Santorum as a guest speaker.
Letters: The Furor Over Senator Santorum
New
York Times, April 25, 2003
229 W. 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036
Fax: 212-556-3622
Email: letters@nytimes.com
Re “G.O.P. Senator’s Remark on Gays Draws Fire”
(news article, April 22):
As a fellow Pennsylvanian and a Republican, I am appalled
by Senator Rick Santorum’s remarks equating homosexuality with bigamy,
polygamy, incest and adultery.
With his comments, Senator Santorum, like Senator Trent
Lott before him, has displayed a level of intolerance and disdain for the
concept of equal rights, which is at the heart of this great country.
Senator Santorum should heed his own advice from his Web
site:
“It is the understood duty of a compassionate people to
reach out to their fellow man.”
- Alexander Munoz, Marshalls Creek, Pa.
Senator Rick Santorum’s comments comparing
homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, adultery and incest were shocking in their
insensitivity and lack of understanding (“Persistent Conflict for Gays and
G.O.P.,” Congressional Memo, April 23).
It seems ironic to me that as a conservative Republican,
Mr. Santorum believes in less government interference in the lives of
Americans, yet he seeks to regulate what consenting adults do in the privacy
of their own homes.
- Rebecca Forman, Brooklyn
Re your April 22 news article about Senator Rick
Santorum’s remarks about gays:
Love between two people, no matter what their sex, is the
basis of a stable family. From a self-described compassionate man, all I see
is a hatred of difference.
As this administration and its allies continue to
demonize those with less political power, I fear that soon none of us will be
safe.
—Seth Rosen, New York
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