Pundits
Predict Santorum Will Survive Flap over Remarks on Gays
Associated Press, April 25,
2003
By David B. Caruso, The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA—There were protests
outside Sen. Rick Santorum’s Philadelphia office this week, and it wasn’t
the first time that activists have taken to the street to lambaste his views
on homosexuality.
In 1994, about 400 members of the group ACT UP blocked
traffic during a Republican fund-raiser on the same block, chanting “Rick
Santorum, go away! Racist. Sexist. Anti-Gay!”
But the protests didn’t hurt Santorum’s Senate bid
then, and political analysts said Friday they expect him to remain popular in
Pennsylvania, despite a flap over his recent remarks about homosexual
behavior.
“I think anybody who has followed Rick Santorum already
knows where he stands on gay rights,” said John Delano, a public policy
professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “He is a very conservative
Republican. Nothing new there, and it hasn’t hurt him yet.”
Millersville University political science professor G.
Terry Madonna said he doubted Santorum will lose many votes in a state where
being a social conservative is rarely seen as a liability.
“I don’t think this imperils him politically at
all,” Madonna said.
Santorum said in an interview with The Associated Press
last week that he believed states had a right to ban gay sex, or other private
behaviors that were “antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional
family.”
“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,” he said.
The remarks outraged gay rights groups, but the fallout
has been moderate compared to the lashing Sen. Trent Lott received for
praising Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist presidential campaign.
The White House on Friday said Santorum is doing a good
job as party leader and is “an inclusive man.”
U.S. Rep. James C. Greenwood, a moderate Republican from
Pennsylvania, suggested that Santorum might defuse the controversy by meeting
privately with gay constituents, and then acknowledging publicly that his
words were unintentionally harmful.
“I don’t think he would offend his most conservative
supporters by saying, ‘Look, I’ve had a meeting with some people in my
district who are gay, and we had a very frank exchange, and I could understand
now why my comments were hurtful.”‘
That might not be enough to satisfy everyone.
At St. Joseph’s University in suburban Philadelphia,
the student union asked the school to rescind an invitation to Santorum to
speak at a graduation ceremony on May 18. University trustees mulled the
request Friday, then said the invitation would stand.
Pennsylvania Democrats continued to criticize
Santorum’s support of antisodomy laws, and his assertion in the same
interview that the U.S. Constitution does not implicitly guarantee a right to
privacy.
“This goes far beyond homosexuality,” said U.S. Rep.
Paul E. Kanjorski, D-Pa. “He is saying that to impose his value system, he
has the right to use the entity of government ... and that is not
acceptable.”
“If that’s the case, you could go one step further
and say the state has a right to (regulate) what is said around the family
dinner table.”
Gay rights groups also said Santorum’s voting record
indicates a bias against homosexuals, something the senator has emphatically
denied.
In 1996 he voted “no” on a bill that would have
extended workplace discrimination protections to gays and “yes” on a bill
letting states refuse to recognize same-sex marriages in other states.
In 2001 he voted to withhold federal funds from school
districts that refused to let the Boy Scouts use their facilities because of
the group’s exclusion of homosexuals.
In 2000 he voted against a bill to make hate-inspired
attacks on homosexuals a federal crime. While in the House, he voted to
preserve a ban on gays in the military.
Santorum’s media consultant, John Brabender, said those
votes were reflections of the mainstream mood. He noted that Santorum kept a
busy public schedule this week in Pennsylvania, and only a few people
questioned him on homosexuality.
“Clearly they cared more about the war on terrorism,
and issues like Social Security and education,” Brabender said. “Frankly,
people did not see how this affected their daily life.”
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