GOP
Suffers Santorum Laryngitis
365Gay.com,
April 23, 2003
By Paul Johnson, Washington Bureau Chief
Washington, D.C.—Republicans
threw a wall of silence Tuesday around Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. No
one from the GOP on Capitol Hill was willing to comment on Santorum’s
controversial interview with the Associated Press in which he linked gays with
incest. (story) No one that is, except Santorum himself, who refused to
apologize.
“This is a legitimate public policy discussion. This is
what the state of Texas argued in their brief. These are not ridiculous
comments,” he said in an interview with Fox News.
Later, in a written statement he said, “My comments
should not be misconstrued in any way as a statement on individual
lifestyles.” It was a variation on a familiar Santorum theme: ‘I don’t
hate the homosexual, just homosexuality.’
Not even the White House was rushing to his defense. At
Tuesday’s press briefing Ari Fleischer said he had no comment on
Santorum’s remarks, saying he had not seen the “the entire context of the
interview. I haven’t talked to the president about it, so I really don’t
have anything to offer.”
Santorum’s only defenders have been conservative
Republicans, including former presidential candidate Gary Bauer.
“I think that while some elites may be upset by those
comments, they’re pretty much in the mainstream of where most of the country
is,” Bauer said.
Santorum also drew praise from Focus on the Family and
other conservative Christian groups. Family Research Council President Ken
Connor said the criticism of Santorum “is intended to intimidate defenders
of marriage and silence critics of the homosexual political agenda.”
But, while Republicans suffered a mass case of laryngitis
Democrats were calling for Santorum’s resignation.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said the
two-term Pennsylvania senator should step down as chairman of the Senate
Republican Conference, the No. 3 job in the party leadership.
The DSCC called Santorum’s remarks “divisive, hurtful
and reckless” and said they “are completely out of bounds for someone who
is supposed to be a leader in the United States Senate.”
Democratic presidential contender, former Vermont Gov.
Howard Dean, joined the chorus.
“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.
Dean charged that Santorum and other Republicans want to
“divide Americans again and again on the basis of race, gender, class and
sexual orientation. It is a policy that must end, and it is a policy that will
end with a Dean presidency.”
His challenger for the Democratic presidential
nomination, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, was also quick to denounce
Santorum’s remarks, and he took aim at the Administration for not speaking
out. .
“The White House speaks the rhetoric of compassionate
conservatism 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, go to
work, pay their taxes, support their families, and contribute to the nation
they love. These comments take us backwards in America.” Santorum’s
“clarification” statement Tuesday was scoffed at by the county’s largest
group of gay Democrats.
“Senator Santorum’s press statement this afternoon is
woefully inadequate. Senator Santorum has a leadership role in coalition
building as the Senate GOP conference chairman—you don’t build coalitions
by divisive and mean spirited statements,” said Mark Mead, spokesperson for
National Stonewall Democrats.
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