A
Republican Group Demands That Senator Apologize to Gays
New
York Times, April 24, 2003
229 W. 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036
Fax: 212-556-3622
Email: letters@nytimes.com
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
WASHINGTON—A Republican group
whose officials include former President Gerald R. Ford and Mary Cheney, the
daughter of the vice president, demanded today that Senator Rick Santorum
apologize to gays for his remarks equating homosexuality with bigamy and
incest.
It was the latest sign of the storm over Mr. Santorum’s
comments. The group spoke out a day after Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Senate
majority leader, rose to Mr. Santorum’s defense.
“Rick is a consistent voice for inclusion and
compassion in the Republican Party and in the Senate,” Dr. Frist said in a
statement issued late Tuesday night, “and to suggest otherwise is just
politics.”
Mr. Santorum, a Pennsylvanian who holds the No. 3 spot in
the Republican leadership, has been buffeted by criticism of his comments
about a Supreme Court challenge to a Texas law banning sodomy.
“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 incest, you have the right to adultery,” he said, in an
interview published on Monday by The Associated Press.
Democrats condemned the remarks, and gay rights groups
called for Mr. Santorum to resign his leadership post. Mr. Santorum has said
that he does not need to apologize and that he was engaged in a “legitimate
public policy discussion.”
Today the Republican group, the Republican Unity
Coalition, joined the critics. But the coalition, which describes itself as a
“gay-straight organization dedicated to making homosexuality a non-issue”
did not call for Mr. Santorum to relinquish his leadership position.
“These are false and harmful comparisons,” the
coalition said in a statement, adding, “Senator Santorum owes an apology to
gay men and women who support, build and have loving families all across
America.”
[Home] [News] [Lawrence
v. Texas] [Santorum] [Spreading
Santorum]
