Gay
Uproar May Not Hurt Senator
Condemnation by GOP’s Santorum seen as offending
only small group of voters
San
Francisco Chronicle, April 23, 2003
901 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94103
Fax: 415-896-1107
Email: letters@sfchronicle.com
By Marc Sandalow, Washington Bureau Chief
Washington—Waxing nostalgic about
the nation’s racist past cost Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott his
leadership title. Blaming Jews for the White House’s push toward war in Iraq
cost Rep. Jim Moran his party post.
Yet Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s comments equating
homosexuality with adultery and incest this week—while prompting howls of
protest from Democrats and gay groups—show no signs yet of jeopardizing his
spot as the Republican Party’s third-ranking senator.
Several conservative organizations released statements
supporting Santorum, while GOP leaders in the Senate remained silent, and
White House officials declined to rebuke him Tuesday. Strategists from both
parties predicted that unlike the Lott controversy, which festered for weeks
before leading to his demotion, a slap at the gay community is likely to be
viewed as a problem only for a small segment of voters.
“Fact is, there is no debate in this country about
whether African Americans should be treated as second-class citizens,” said
one Democratic strategist, comparing the Lott and Santorum cases. “The
debate on homosexuals is still taking place.”
Equating Homosexuality With Incest
Santorum’s comments on gays came during an interview
with the Associated Press printed Monday.
“If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to
consensual (gay) 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 said, referring to a
landmark gay rights case before the high court that pits a Texas sodomy ban
against privacy rights.
“All of those things are antithetical to a healthy,
stable, traditional family,” Santorum said.
David Smith, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign,
the nation’s largest gay lobbying group, branded Santorum’s words “one
of the most egregiously anti-gay statements I have heard a Republican leader
make.”
White House Silent
Except for the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay group,
Republicans mostly declined to criticize the second-term senator.
“I have not seen the entire context of the
interview,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said of Santorum’s
comments in an extended exchange during his daily briefing Tuesday. “And . .
. I haven’t talked to the president about it. So, I really don’t have
anything to offer beyond that.”
“Do you need context?” a reporter inquired.
“I haven’t talked to the president about it, I
haven’t talked to Sen. Santorum, so I just don’t have anything for you on
it,” Fleischer said.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was returning
from China on Tuesday, and his office said he was not available for comment.
The comments brought quick rebuke from several Democrats,
including both of California’s senators.
Sen. Barbara Boxer called Santorum’s comments
“offensive and hurtful.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said the remarks were
“ill-advised” and “wrongheaded.”
Both said Santorum’s position as Republican conference
chair, the post after Majority Leader Frist and Majority Whip Mitch McConnell,
R-Ky., was a matter for Republicans to decide.
The person the political parties choose to lead them
“sends a message to America,” Boxer said.
Republicans feared they would be sending the wrong
message if they hadn’t forced Lott to resign. Lott, speaking Dec. 5 at a
100th birthday celebration in the Capitol for retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond of
South Carolina, noted that Mississippi had voted for Thurmond when he ran for
president in 1948 as the pro-segregation Dixiecrat candidate.
Although Democratic President Harry Truman won the 1948
election on a pro- civil rights platform, Lott added, “If the rest of the
country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over
all these years.”
Democrats reacted similarly and forced Moran, D-Va., out
of a regional whip position after he said at a forum in early March, “If it
were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with
Iraq, we would not be doing this. . . . The leaders of the Jewish community
are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is
going, and I think they should.”
GOP’s Silence Offends Democrats
Several of the Democratic presidential candidates reacted
to Santorum’s remarks by criticizing the Pennsylvania lawmaker and the White
House.
“The silence with which President Bush and the
Republican Party leadership have greeted Sen. Santorum’s remarks is
deafening,” said former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts said: “The White House
speaks the rhetoric of compassionate conservatism, but they’re silent while
their chief lieutenants make divisive and hurtful comments.”
Senator Plans No Apology
In an interview with Fox News late Tuesday, his first
since the comments were published, Santorum said he doesn’t owe anyone an
apology.
“I do not need to give an apology based on what I said
and what I’m saying now—I think this is a legitimate public policy
discussion,” Santorum said. “This is what the state of Texas argued in
their brief. . . . These are not, you know, ridiculous you know comments,
these are very much a very important point.”
Santorum’s Comments
Here are excerpts of the Associated Press’ transcript
of an April 7 interview with Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.
“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. . . .
“ . . . 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. . . .”
“. . . 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 (gay) 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. . . .
“. . . 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. . . .
“. . . 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.”
A Slippery Slope
San
Francisco Chronicle, April 24, 2003
901 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94103
Fax: 415-896-1107
Email: letters@sfchronicle.com
This letter is in response to your article about Sen.
Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and his statement that no apology is necessary
concerning his assertion that while an orientation is fine with him and he
accepts the orientation, it is when people act on that orientation that “it
becomes a legitimate public policy discussion” (“Gay uproar may not hurt
senator,” April 23).
I agree! While I know there to be many left-handed people
in our midst, and I have no problem with them being of that orientation, I am
highly offended when they have the nerve to act on that orientation; even in
the privacy of their homes! Where does it end?
Clearly it is a slippery slope. God obviously favored his
right hand and we are made in his image. All right-thinking, right-minded,
right-brained people should agree and the U.S. Supreme Court should mind their
own business and stay out of this!
—Ted Hax, Woodside
It is disappointing that gay rights groups have attacked Sen. Rick Santorum as
being a bigot and a homophobe, while not recognizing that he brings up a good
legal question. If the U.S. Supreme Court rules that individuals do have the
right to privacy in the bedroom, then what is the constitutional basis for
preventing polygamy, bigamy, sodomy and other deviant sexual practices?
Until that question is answered convincingly, the attacks
on the senator ring hollow.
—Richard Larson, Santa Clara
Sen. Rick Santorum may not be worried about a gay
backlash, but he should be worried about inflaming the nation’s adulterers.
In his AP interview on Monday, the senator stated that he doesn’t believe
people should have the “right to adultery,” which implies that he thinks
there ought to be a law against it.
I’m not an adulteress, let me hasten to say, but I’ve
known some and I’m sure they would be pretty upset if the government decided
to criminalize their extramarital activities. One can only wonder what the
senator would propose as a fitting punishment for this crime, maybe stoning?
—Elaine Park, Redwood City
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