Last edited: February 12, 2005


Rally Round Intolerance

New York Times, May 4, 2003
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Editorial

Far from plummeting, Senator Rick Santorum’s stock with the nation’s Republican leaders seems to be rising in the wake of his outrageous equating of homosexuality with bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery.

“All those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family,” Senator Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, maintained last month in urging the Supreme Court to uphold a Texas ban on consensual gay sex at home. He set off a furor, once more raising suspicions that the G.O.P. extends a strategic welcome to homophobes.

“Senator Santorum took a very courageous and moral position based upon principles and his world view,” Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, said after Congress’s two-week break. “I’m very proud of Rick Santorum.” The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, firmly defended Mr. Santorum’s No. 3 position in the hierarchy as “absolutely solid” because he is “strongly religious, a man of great faith.”

President Bush seemed cagier, staying silent while having his spokesman praise Mr. Santorum as “an inclusive man.” Dr. Frist was less inhibited, describing Mr. Santorum as “a man of caring, compassion and tolerance.” Try telling that to criminal defendants in the Texas challenge.


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