PA senator compares homosexuality to bigamy, incest, adultery. - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

MSD · 04-22-2003, 03:22 PM

Quote:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...715EDT0648.DTL

Gay-rights groups, fuming over Sen. Rick Santorum's comparison of homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery, urged Republican leaders Monday to consider removing the Pennsylvania lawmaker from the GOP Senate leadership.

A coalition of groups in Washington and Pennsylvania compared Santorum's remarks to those by those last December by former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott about Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist campaign for the presidency. Shortly afterward, Lott was forced to resign as Republican Senate leader.

Santorum is chairman of the GOP conference in the Senate, third in his party's leadership, behind Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

"We're urging the Republican leadership to condemn the remarks. They were stunning in their insensitivity, and they're the same types of remarks that sparked outrage toward Sen. Lott," said David Smith, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay advocacy organization. "We would ask that the leadership reconsider his standing within the conference leadership."

In an interview with The Associated Press, Santorum criticized homosexuality while discussing a pending Supreme Court case over a Texas sodomy law.

"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, R-Pa., said in the interview, published Monday.

Santorum spokeswoman Erica Clayton Wright said the lawmaker's comments were "were specific to the Supreme Court case."

The White House did not immediately return a call seeking comment, and a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Frist declined comment.

Lott resigned his post in December after making remarks at a 100th birthday celebration for Thurmond that were widely considered racially insensitive and condemned by the White House. Lott later apologized.

Among the groups condemning Santorum's remarks were the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, the Pennsylvania Log Cabin Republicans, OutFront, and the Pennsylvania Gender Rights Coalition.
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The last thing we need is people in power who hold archaic beliefs that harm minority groups and limit personal freedom where the government should have no say in what goes on. Your bedroom is your own private place, and as long as you aren't causing serious injury or making snuff films and child porn, they should butt out.

laughter · 04-22-2003, 03:47 PM

Pa seems to have problems with this - last time it was a House Rep trying to shut down a safe sex 'festival' at Penn State for 'indecency'.

ratbastid · 04-22-2003, 04:11 PM

Looks like a Trent Lott-style gaffe-fest.

greytone · 04-22-2003, 04:40 PM

First of all, I am not in Santorum's camp. In the clip I saw, I thought it was pretty clear that he was making the observation that if the court decided that the state can not interfere in private sexual relationships with regard to the gender of your partner, then the same legal argument will quickly be expanded to say that the government can not control the number or marital status of your partners.

I have to say I agree with him, but that is because I don't think that the government should have any interest in any of the above. I see a good thing where he sees a bad thing.

I am sure that he believes it is perfectly OK to have laws governing all of these activities, but I don't think his comments were "gay bashing" in anyway.

Puppetry Master · 04-22-2003, 06:43 PM

Having multiple wives/husbands and engaging in consensual sex with a partner of the same gender are completely different. Having sex with someone doesn't effect anyone (except your partner, who you hope it effects quite a bit). Having 4 wives complicates prenups, child custody, divorce, hospital visitation rights, it'd just be a mess. Marriage is a union recognized by the government. Completely different then getting your groove on in your own damned bedroom.

04-22-2003, 03:47 PM	#2 (permalink)
laughter Tilted Location: Canada's capital, eh	Pa seems to have problems with this - last time it was a House Rep trying to shut down a safe sex 'festival' at Penn State for 'indecency'. __________________ "Laughter is nothing else but a sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly." -Thomas Hobbes

04-22-2003, 04:40 PM	#4 (permalink)
greytone Junkie	First of all, I am not in Santorum's camp. In the clip I saw, I thought it was pretty clear that he was making the observation that if the court decided that the state can not interfere in private sexual relationships with regard to the gender of your partner, then the same legal argument will quickly be expanded to say that the government can not control the number or marital status of your partners. I have to say I agree with him, but that is because I don't think that the government should have any interest in any of the above. I see a good thing where he sees a bad thing. I am sure that he believes it is perfectly OK to have laws governing all of these activities, but I don't think his comments were "gay bashing" in anyway. __________________ I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It's a common failing. Robert A Heinlein in "They Do It With Mirrors"

04-22-2003, 06:43 PM	#5 (permalink)
Puppetry Master Upright	Having multiple wives/husbands and engaging in consensual sex with a partner of the same gender are completely different. Having sex with someone doesn't effect anyone (except your partner, who you hope it effects quite a bit). Having 4 wives complicates prenups, child custody, divorce, hospital visitation rights, it'd just be a mess. Marriage is a union recognized by the government. Completely different then getting your groove on in your own damned bedroom. __________________ Master of the Sock Puppet Theater

04-22-2003, 04:11 PM	#3 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	Looks like a Trent Lott-style gaffe-fest.