Impolitic,
Maybe, but in Character
New
York Times, April 25, 2003
229 W. 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036
Fax: 212-556-3622
Email: letters@nytimes.com
By Adam Nagourney and Sheryl Gay Stolberg
WASHINGTON—In a city that admires
fast-rising political stars, Senator Rick Santorum has been one of the fastest
risers. But pointed remarks that Mr. Santorum made about homosexuality could
now derail that ascent, some Republicans say—and no one who knows the
senator well is surprised that he made them.
The third-most-powerful Republican in the Senate, Mr.
Santorum, of Pennsylvania, is a Roman Catholic who attends Mass every day. His
religious views inform a philosophy that many of his colleagues describe as
unwavering and as conservative as anyone’s in the Senate.
Yet this ideological side of Mr. Santorum, several
associates said today, has sometimes been obscured as he has positioned
himself as a new young face of the conservative movement of his party. At 45,
he has become a telegenic staple of the Sunday morning talk shows who learned
to moderate, for the most part, the way he expressed his political views as he
sought to polish his increasingly high-profile national image.
“It’s the old Reagan technique of being amiable and
pleasant,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who led the
conservative shake-up of the House in the mid-1990’s. “Santorum says it
very amiably and most people say, ‘That’s nice,’ as opposed to saying,
‘That’s frightening.’”
If, as even his supporters say, Mr. Santorum has sought
in recent years to modulate his conservative pronouncements, mindful that much
of Pennsylvania and the nation are considerably more centrist than he is, he
may have lost his balance with a remark to The Associated Press likening
homosexuality to incest and bigamy. It was a statement, colleagues and
political analysts say, that seemed more characteristic of the earlier years
of his career.
“Since the last election, he has tried to temper his
public image by moving toward the center more,” said Michael Young, an
independent pollster based in Pennsylvania. “But that core philosophy which
he expressed I think fully in that interview has been part of his political
persona since day one.”
Mr. Santorum’s closest friends, and even those who
oppose him on social issues like abortion, gay rights and welfare, said his
comments were genuine and reflective of his religious faith and upbringing.
“I suspect Rick doesn’t know many gay people, and it
may very well be that he never had a serious conversation with gay men and
women about why they are gay,” said Representative James C. Greenwood, a
moderate Republican from Pennsylvania who is close to Mr. Santorum. “I
suspect that Rick thinks somehow that people choose for some strange reason to
just up and be gay. “
Mr. Santorum declined a request for an interview for this
article.
Although Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has
risen to Mr. Santorum’s defense, three moderate Republican
senators—Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and
Gordon H. Smith of Oregon—criticized Mr. Santorum today.
Still, his remarks might well prove to be a problem both
for Mr. Santorum and the Republican Party. Homosexuality has become an
increasingly vexing issue for the Republicans as they have sought to balance
the disapproving views of homosexuality held by the party’s religious right
with the more accepting view of many centrist members.
Mr. Santorum’s fellow senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen
Specter, a moderate Republican, said today that the state’s voters knew of
Mr. Santorum’s conservative positions, but that Mr. Santorum was “a
ferocious campaigner, and I think that he’s a very sincere man, so that
people are drawn to him beyond the issue of political philosophy.”
Asked if this episode might cause problems for Mr.
Santorum in future elections, Mr. Specter responded with obvious concern.
“It depends on how it plays out,” he said.
“Washington is a town filled with cannibals. The cannibals devoured Trent
Lott without cause. If the cannibals are after you, you are in deep trouble.
It depends on whether the cannibals are hungry. My guess is that it will blow
over.”
In the Associated Press interview, Mr. Santorum said:
“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.”
Mr. Santorum has come quite a distance from his early
days in the Senate, when he did not appear to fit into the club. Such actions
as calling for the ouster of Mark Hatfield, a Republican, as chairman of the
Appropriations Committee because he had voted against the balanced-budget
amendment, led one former Democratic senator, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, to use a
vulgarity to describe him. That description was repeatedly recalled by
Republicans and Democrats today in discussing Mr. Santorum, and Mr. Kerrey
said he did not regret making it.
Mr. Santorum has identified with the conservative wing of
his party in high-profile legislative battles. Mr. Santorum, who has six
children, led the Senate fight to ban the procedure opponents call late-term
abortion.
His decision to take a leading role on the volatile issue
stems from his personal experience, his friends say.
In 1996, Mr. Santorum’s wife, Karen, delivered a baby
20 weeks into her pregnancy and the infant did not survive. When Mr. Santorum
speaks of his children, he says he has seven, and that the fourth, Gabriel
Michael, is “the one in heaven.”
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