Democrats
Join Calls Denouncing Santorum
The
Data Lounge, April 23, 2003
WASHINGTON—An organization
representing Senate Democrats on Tuesday called for Republican Sen. Rick
Santorum to resign his leadership position after the lawmaker compared
homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery.
A day after gay civil rights groups urged GOP senators to
consider removing Santorum from his leadership post, 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.”
In an interview with The Associated Press, Santorum
criticized homosexuality while discussing a pending Supreme Court case over a
Texas sodomy law.
“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 in the
interview.
Santorum, a lawyer, said that was not an _expression of
intolerance. “It is simply a reflection of the law,” he said, saying
Justice Byron White articulated that view in the infamous 1986 Bowers vs.
Hardwick Supreme Court ruling that upheld Georgia’s sodomy statute. “In
the interview, I expressed the same concern as many constitutional scholars,
and discussed arguments put forward by the State of Texas, as well as Supreme
Court justices. If such a law restricting personal conduct is held
unconstitutional, so could other existing state laws,” Santorum said.
“My discussion ... was about the Supreme Court privacy
case, the constitutional right to privacy in general, and in context of the
impact on the family. I am a firm believer that all are equal under the
Constitution,” Santorum said.
On Wednesday, Santorum added that his remarks about
homosexuality were “taken out of context.”
But the news agency notes that Santorum also talked about
homosexuality in general during the interview, and that he made it clear he
did not approve of “acts outside of traditional heterosexual
relationships.”
Specifically, the Pennsylvania Senator describes gay
sexual activity as a threat to society and the family. “I have no problem
with homosexuality,” he said. “I have a problem with homosexual acts.”
“Senator Santorum has no reason to apologize,” a
spokesman for Santorum said, adding that the senator was ignoring as
unwarranted the Democratic call to step down.
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