Santorum
and Tolerance
Wall
Street Journal, April 25, 2003
200 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10281
Fax: 212-416-2658
Email: letter.editor@edit.wsj.com
Let’s see if we have this right. By expressing a legal
view of “privacy” already enshrined in a Supreme Court decision, Rick
Santorum is somehow unfit for U.S. Senate leadership?
In his now-famous interview with an AP reporter, the
Pennsylvania Republican discussed the implications of the Supreme Court’s
pending decision on a Texas sodomy law. “If the Supreme Court says that you
have the right to consensual sex within your home,” Mr. Santorum said,
“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.”
His political critics quickly accused him of bigotry and
Trent Lottism. But what he really said is that there is no “right to
privacy” on sexual relations in the penumbras and emanations of the
Constitution, a view held by tens of millions of Americans. If individual
consent (or privacy) were to become the only Constitutional measure involved
in sanctioning sexual relations, then no legislature anywhere would be able to
draw lines against any kind of sexual conduct.
Mr. Santorum’s argument is almost identical to that of
Justice Byron White in 1986 when the Supreme Court refused to overturn another
sodomy law in Bowers v. Hardwick: “[I]f respondent’s submission is limited
to the voluntary sexual conduct between consenting adults, it would be
difficult, except by fiat, to limit the claimed right to homosexual conduct
while leaving exposed to prosecution adultery, incest, and other sexual crimes
even though they are committed in the home. We are unwilling to start down
that road.” White was appointed by Jack Kennedy.
It’s true that Mr. Santorum also made clear that, while
he had no problem with homosexuality, he disapproves of “homosexual acts,”
the condoning of which he believes is, like adultery or polygamy,
“antithetical to strong, healthy families.” That’s pretty much the
position of the Catholic church, which teaches that homosexual acts are sinful
but demands that its faithful (Mr. Santorum is one) “love the sinner.” Gay
Americans may disagree, and they can make that clear in the next election, but
the Constitution doesn’t have religious tests for holding public office.
Our own view is that state anti-sodomy laws are almost
never enforced, and they deserve the oblivion for which they are undoubtedly
headed. But the issue is best settled democratically, not by judicial fiat,
and that means it has to be discussable in the public square. Had abortion
been left to legislatures in the 1970s, we would have long ago settled the
issue with a democratic compromise and spared our politics 30 years of
cultural rancor and polarization.
The demonization of Mr. Santorum tells us that his
opponents really aren’t interested in a legal or moral debate. To the
contrary, their aim is to eliminate any debate by tagging as a bigot anyone
who dares hold an opposing view—especially if that view happens to be
grounded in religious orthodoxy. It strikes us that their argument for
tolerance would be far more persuasive if its advocates could bring themselves
to extend it to Mr. Santorum.
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