LLEGÓ
Seeks Removal of Santorum From Senate Leadership Position
National Latino Sexual-Minority Group Outraged by
Senator’s Comparison of Homosexuality to Bigamy, Incest, Adultery
The
National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Organization,
April 23, 2003
Media Contact: Ronald Hube, (202) 408-5380, ext. 108
Washington, D.C.—LLEGÓ—the
National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Organization—wrote
this week to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart,
chairperson of the Congressional Hispanic Conference, asking that Sen. Rick
Santorum (R-Pa.) be removed from his post as chairman of the Senate Republican
Conference.
The call for Santorum’s dismissal from the majority
party’s third highest position in the Senate comes in the wake of comments
attributed to him by the Associated Press this week. According to AP, Santorum
said in reply to a question about homosexuality, “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.” Santorum
was referring to a Texas sodomy-law case which is before the Supreme Court.
“All of those things are antithetical to a healthy,
stable traditional family,” Santorum went on to say, according to AP.
“Senator Santorum’s comments are an affront to the growing number of
same-sex households raising children in loving and caring homes,” said Martín
Ornelas-Quintero, LLEGÓ executive director, in a letter to Frist and Diaz-Balart,
a Florida Republican. “Our families are as legitimate as heterosexual
families, and deserve the same level of respect and recognition.” Other
sexual minority advocacy groups, including the nation’s largest—the Human
Rights Campaign—have also called for Santorum’s removal from his Senate
leadership position, as have many Pennsylvania organizations such as the
state’s Log Cabin Republicans and the Pennsylvania Gay and Lesbian Alliance.
The controversy comes only months after another prominent
Republican senator, Trent Lott of Mississippi, was forced out of his post as
majority leader after making remarks seen as racist. More recently, Democratic
congressman Jim Moran of Virginia lost a House leadership position after
saying Jews were pushing the White House toward invading Iraq.
LLEGÓ is the nation’s only organization devoted to
organizing Latino LGBT communities on a local, regional, national and
international level. A nonprofit group, LLEGÓ addresses social, health, and
political disparities based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and
ethnicity affecting the Latino LGBT community. LLEGÓ is home to various
programs providing infrastructure development to Latino LGBT communities in
the United States and Latin America.
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