Sen.
Rick Santorum’s Comments on Homosexuality in an AP Interview
The Associated Press, April
22, 2003
(04-22) 15:51 PDT
(AP)—An unedited section of the Associated Press
interview, taped April 7, with Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. Words that couldn’t
be heard clearly on the tape are marked (unintelligible).
AP: If
you’re saying that liberalism is taking power away from the families, how is
conservatism giving more power to the families?
SANTORUM:
Putting more money in their pocketbook is one. The more money you take away
from families is the less power that family has. And that’s a basic power.
The average American family in the 1950s paid (unintelligible) percent in
federal taxes. An average American family now pays about 25 percent.
The argument is, yes, we need to help other people. But
one of the things we tried to do with welfare, and we’re trying to do with
other programs is, we’re setting levels of expectation and responsibility,
which the left never wanted to do. They don’t want to judge. They say, Oh,
you can’t judge people. They should be able to do what they want to do.
Well, not if you’re taking my money and giving it to them. But it’s this
whole idea of moral equivalency. (unintelligible) My feeling is, well, if
it’s my money, I have a right to judge.
AP: Speaking
of liberalism, there was a story in The Washington Post about six months ago,
they’d pulled something off the Web, some article that you wrote blaming,
according to The Washington Post, blaming in part the Catholic Church scandal
on liberalism. Can you explain that?
SANTORUM: You
have the problem within the church. Again, it goes back to this moral
relativism, which is very accepting of a variety of different lifestyles. And
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.
AP: The right
to privacy lifestyle?
SANTORUM: The
right to privacy lifestyle.
AP: What’s
the alternative?
SANTORUM: In
this case, what we’re talking about, basically, is priests who were having
sexual relations with post-pubescent men. We’re not talking about priests
with 3-year-olds, or 5-year-olds. We’re talking about a basic homosexual
relationship. Which, again, according to the world view sense is a a perfectly
fine relationship as long as it’s consensual between people. If you view the
world that way, and you say that’s fine, you would assume that you would see
more of it.
AP: Well, what
would you do?
SANTORUM: What
would I do with what?
AP: I mean,
how would you remedy? What’s the alternative?
SANTORUM:
First off, I don’t believe _
AP: I mean,
should we outlaw homosexuality?
SANTORUM: 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.
AP: OK,
without being too gory or graphic, so if somebody is homosexual, you would
argue that they should not have sex?
SANTORUM: We
have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that has
sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose. Because, again, I would argue,
they undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family. And if the
Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual 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. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it
does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn’t
exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was
created, it was created in Griswold—Griswold was the contraceptive
case—and abortion. And now we’re just extending it out. And the further
you extend it out, the more you—this freedom actually intervenes and affects
the family. You say, well, it’s my individual freedom. Yes, but it destroys
the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that’s
antithetical to strong, healthy families. Whether it’s polygamy, whether
it’s adultery, where it’s sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to
a healthy, stable, traditional family.
Every society in the history of man has upheld the
institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because
society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the
society. And that’s what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every
society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included
homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know,
man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And
when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality _
AP: I’m
sorry, I didn’t think I was going to talk about “man on dog” with a
United States senator, it’s sort of freaking me out.
SANTORUM: And
that’s sort of where we are in today’s world, unfortunately. The idea is
that the state doesn’t have rights to limit individuals’ wants and
passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because
there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions
they desire. And we’re seeing it in our society.
AP: Sorry, I
just never expected to talk about that when I came over here to interview you.
Would a President Santorum eliminate a right to privacy—you don’t agree
with it?
SANTORUM:
I’ve been very clear about that. The right to privacy is a right that was
created in a law that set forth a (ban on) rights to limit individual
passions. And I don’t agree with that. So I would make the argument that
with President, or Senator or Congressman or whoever Santorum, I would put it
back to where it is, the democratic process. If New York doesn’t want sodomy
laws, if the people of New York want abortion, fine. I mean, I wouldn’t
agree with it, but that’s their right. But I don’t agree with the Supreme
Court coming in.
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