Santorum’s
Rationale
Washington
Times (Unification Church), April 25, 2003
3600 New York Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20002
Fax: 202-269-3419
Email: letter@twtmail.com
By Linda Chavez
Republican Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania is in
hot water for remarks he made recently regarding a pending Supreme Court case
challenging state anti-sodomy laws, and some gay groups are calling for his
ouster as chairman of the Republican Conference, the third highest position in
the Republican leadership. Is this another black eye for the GOP, akin to
Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott’s embarrassing suggestions a few months ago that
seemed to hearken back to the segregationist past? Or is it one more example
of the dangers of speaking out on controversial issues in these politically
correct times?
In an interview with the Associated Press, Mr. Santorum
offered the opinion that “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.”
Mr. Santorum was referring to Lawrence vs. Texas, which
was argued before the court last month and involves a case in which two men
were charged under a Texas law prohibiting homosexual sodomy. The men were
arrested when police came to investigate a neighbor’s complaint that someone
was wielding a gun and “going crazy” in a nearby apartment and found the
two men in flagrante delicto. Although the initial complaint turned out to be
wrong—the man filing it was later prosecuted for making a false report—the
two gay men spent the night in jail and were fined $200 each.
Only a few states—13—still outlaw consensual sodomy;
and only four, including Texas, criminalize homosexual, but not heterosexual,
sodomy. No state routinely enforces any of these laws, raising the question
whether they all ought to be repealed. But the issue before the Supreme Court
is not whether such laws are good policy but whether states have the right to
make laws regarding private, consensual sex between adults in the first place.
You do not have to be a gay basher to believe, as Mr.
Santorum argues, that striking down the Texas statute is problematic. Either
the Constitution protects the rights of consenting adults to do whatever they
desire in private or it does not. If the Constitution prohibits a state from
regulating consensual sexual activities between adults of the same sex, why
should it allow states to regulate such activities between adults of the
opposite sex, which anti-incest, anti-bigamy, anti-polygamy and anti-adultery
statutes certainly do? (Ironically, one of the arguments of the gay rights
groups that brought this case is that homosexuals and heterosexuals ought to
be treated the same.) Again, the issue is not whether these laws are good
policy or bad, but whether the state should have the authority to pass such
laws at all.
These laws reflect a moral consensus about the behaviors
involved. But, for better or worse, that consensus is changing, especially
with regard to homosexuality. There is far greater acceptance of gay men and
women today than at any time in our nation’s history. Nonetheless, according
to the most comprehensive study of sexual attitudes among Americans, the
National Health and Social Life Survey conducted in the early 1990s, 65
percent of respondents said “same gender sex is always wrong.”
Believing homosexuality is wrong, however, does not
translate into support for laws outlawing homosexual conduct. Most
Americans—68 percent, according to a 2000 Los Angeles Times poll—favor
laws forbidding employment discrimination against gays. Half of all Americans
favor giving gays’ inheritance rights, employer-provided benefits and other
entitlements enjoyed by married couples (although an even larger 58 percent
oppose allowing gay couples to “marry”).
These data suggest that most voters would favor repealing
the few remaining state anti-sodomy laws, putting the power to make such
decisions where it belongs, with the elected representatives of the people. If
the Court disagrees and strikes down the Texas statute, not only will
anti-bigamy and anti-incest laws be at risk, but so will others that interfere
with private, consensual behavior, including gambling, prostitution, drug laws
and others.
No doubt some Americans—libertarians, for
example—would applaud such sweeping change. But most would not, which brings
us back to Mr. Santorum’s statement. He wasn’t equating homosexual
behavior with bigamy, incest, etc. as most of the media reports on the flap
have suggested—but rather asserting that the state has an interest in
regulating some private behaviors. There’s nothing abhorrent about such a
view, and he should not be pilloried for stating it.
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