Private
Parts
Rick Santorum’s Gay Problem
Reason
Online, April 23, 2003
By Ronald Bailey
Pennsylvania Senator and chairman of the Republican
Senate Caucus Rick Santorum has hit the buzz saw of history with his recent
comments on homosexuality. Santorum told the Associated Press: “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.”
Santorum claimed that he was just offering his opinion of
the case now before the U.S. Supreme Court in which two gay men are
challenging Texas’ sodomy laws. In this case, two men, John Lawrence and
Tyron Garner, were arrested by police answering a false report of “an armed
man going crazy.” Instead, upon entering Lawrence’s home, the police found
them engaged in anal sex. Texas’ Homosexual Conduct Law punishes certain
private sex acts when they are committed by same-sex couples, but not by
heterosexuals.
Amusingly, Santorum carefully told the AP that he did not
oppose just homosexual acts but also “acts outside of traditional
heterosexual relationships.” Therefore, to be consistent, Santorum would
presumably oppose the Texas sodomy law on the grounds that it permits
heterosexuals to get away with such “non-traditional” activities as oral
and anal sex and anything to do with whipped cream.
However, most news stories have overlooked the more
chilling fact that Santorum’s views on homosexuality came up in the broader
context of the right to privacy. Santorum thinks that privacy is a bad idea.
“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,” said
Santorum according to the transcript of his AP interview.
Santorum is undoubtedly right—if people feel freer of
the constraints imposed by the prying eyes of their neighbors, they will
explore different ways of expressing themselves and enjoying life. This
traditionally was why many people fled farms and small towns for the anonymity
of the big cities. As the German aphorism says, “City air makes men free.”
Privacy allows people to engage in all kinds of activities of which others
might disapprove, ranging from religious worship, membership in dissident
groups, recreational drug use, reading pornography, and yes, consensual sex
acts between adults. The rising demand by Americans for an expanding sphere of
privacy is the buzz saw into which Santorum stumbled.
Just consider the change in American attitudes toward
homosexuality over the past three decades. Futurist Alvin Toffler suggested in
his 1970 classic Future Shock, “As homosexuality becomes more socially
acceptable, we may even begin to find families based on homosexual
‘marriages’ with partners adopting children.” This was a scandalous
notion at the time, but today 21 states have precedents allowing gay couples
to adopt. As all the world knows, Vermont now permits “civil unions”
between same sex couples.
Polls indicate that Americans are becoming more accepting
of homosexuality. A Gallup poll in the late 1990s showed a declining majority
(59 percent) of Americans still agreed with Santorum that homosexuality is
“always wrong.” That is most likely an expression of their religious
convictions. But in what could be interpreted as strong support for their
fellow citizens’ privacy rights, recent polls find that in the same time
period, 52 percent of Americans regarded homosexuality as an acceptable
lifestyle while 44 percent found it unacceptable. Furthermore, 54 percent
favored legalizing consensual homosexual activity between adults, while only
42 percent opposed legalization.
Santorum believes that acceptance of homosexuality and
other “deviant” sexual practices is “antithetical to a healthy, stable,
traditional family.” Just as Toffler was prophetic about the growing
acceptance of homosexuality, he was also prescient about what would likely
happen to family structures. “Minorities experiment; majorities cling to the
forms of the past. It is safe to say that large numbers of people will refuse
to jettison the conventional idea of marriage or the familiar family forms.
They will, no doubt, continue searching for happiness within the orthodox
format.”
So relax, Senator Santorum, and leave people alone.
It’s none of your business anyway.
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