Democrats
Criticize Santorum
The
Advocate, April 23, 2003
Just as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has
called on Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania to resign from his leadership
position in the Republican Party following antigay comments he made to the
Associated Press, two Democratic presidential hopefuls and the U.S. Senate
minority leader also have joined those criticizing Santorum.
Santorum, who is third in command in the Republican
Party, made his comments when discussing the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming
decision regarding the constitutionality of antigay sodomy laws. “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,” Santorum said. “All of those things are antithetical to a
healthy, stable, traditional family. And that’s sort of where we are in
today’s world, unfortunately. It all comes from, I would argue, this right
to privacy that doesn’t exist, in my opinion, in the United States
Constitution.”
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who is seeking the
Democratic presidential nomination, said Tuesday that he is outraged by the
comments made by Santorum. “That a leader of the Republican Party would make
such insensitive and divisive comments—comments that are derogatory and
meant to harm an entire group of Americans, their friends, and their
families—is not only outrageous but deeply offensive,” Dean said in a
statement. “The silence with which President Bush and the Republican Party
leadership have greeted Senator Santorum’s remarks is deafening. It is the
same silence that greeted Senator Lott’s offensive remarks in December. It
is a silence that implicitly condones a policy of domestic divisiveness, a
policy that seeks to divide Americans again and again on the basis of race,
gender, class, and sexual orientation.”
Fellow presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry of
Massachusetts also came out in opposition to Santorum’s comments: “The
White House speaks the rhetoric of compassionate conservativism, but they’re
silent while their chief lieutenants make divisive and hurtful comments that
have no place in our politics. The White House says Santorum is ‘one of the
original compassionate conservatives’ who ‘has a philosophy that’s good
for the people of Pennsylvania no matter who they are.’ Every day in our
country, gay and lesbian Americans get up, work, pay their taxes, support
their families, and contribute to the nation they love. These comments take us
backward in America.”
Meanwhile, Senate minority leader Tom Daschle also shared
his displeasure with Santorum’s position. “Senator Santorum’s comments
were unfortunate, and I disagree with him wholeheartedly,” he said. “I
hope he clarifies that he was not equating homosexuality with bigamy or
incest. Those sentiments are out of step for tolerance, and I hope Senator
Santorum would repudiate them.”
In a statement Tuesday, Santorum denied that his comments
were meant to be antigay. “I am a firm believer that all are equal under the
Constitution,” he said. “My comments should not be misconstrued in any way
as a statement on individual lifestyles.” He added that his comments were
meant to be restricted to the Supreme Court case.
Questioned at a White House news briefing, press
secretary Ari Fleischer had no comment on Santorum’s remarks, saying he had
not seen the “the entire context of the interview. And...I haven’t talked
to the president about it, so I really don’t have anything to offer.”
On Monday several national and Pennsylvania-based gay
rights groups also urged Republican officials to remove Santorum from his
leadership position in light of his comments. “Senator Santorum’s comments
are shameful but not surprising as they reflect his record of bigotry,” said
Dave Noble, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats. “It
should disturb every fair-minded American that this is the man that Senate
Republicans chose to lead their conference.” Added Winnie Stachelberg of the
gay rights group Human Rights Campaign: “Discriminatory remarks like this
fuel prejudice that can lead to violence and other harms against the gay
community. HRC is calling on Republican leaders to take quick and decisive
action to repudiate Senator Santorum’s remarks [and] on Republican
leadership to demonstrate that tolerance and civil rights are important to
them—not simply something that is politically expedient.”
The gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans called on
Santorum to apologize for his remarks. “The choice for Senator Santorum is
whether he will embrace the inclusive and winning message of President George
W. Bush or the rejected team of Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, and
their grand total of 0 electoral votes,” said the group’s executive
director, Patrick Guerriero.
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