Critics
Blast Santorum for Gay Remarks
Erie
Times News, April 23, 2003
205 W. 12th Street, Erie, PA 16534
Fax: 814-870-1808
Email: newsdesk@timesnews.com
By Ed Palattella, ed.palattella@timesnews.com
An Erie gay-rights advocate joined the growing chorus of
critics who want Sen. Rick Santorum to leave his GOP leadership post over the
legislator’s remarks on homosexuality.
“It was deeply offensive,” said Mike Mahler, the
co-editor of Erie Gay News. “It was plain, flat-out mean. There is just no
other word for it.
“He should step down.”
Santorum’s remarks to the Associated Press—in which
he likened homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery—stirred up
more criticism Tuesday. The Senate Democrats’ political organization called
for Santorum’s resignation as the Senate’s GOP conference chairman.
Santorum issued a written statement Tuesday calling the
AP story “misleading.”
“I am a firm believer that all are equal under the
Constitution,” Santorum said. “My comments should not be misconstrued in
any way as a statement on individual lifestyles.”
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee called the
remarks of Santorum, a two-term senator from Pittsburgh, “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.”
Gay-rights groups have already asked that the GOP
leadership force Santorum to resign as the Senate Republican conference
chairman. That position is third in the Republican Party Senate leadership,
behind Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Assistant Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
But Frist said, “Rick is a consistent voice for
inclusion and compassion in the Republican Party and in the Senate, and to
suggest otherwise is just politics.”
Mahler said Santorum’s comments were
“irresponsible.”
“You are linking together various categories of
behavior, without distinguishing from consensual adult behavior. If someone
linked Presbyterianism to all those wacky religious cults, what would happen?
That person would be asked to step down.”
In an interview with The AP, Santorum criticized
homosexuality while discussing a pending U.S. 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.
Mahler said he favors laws that regulate public behavior.
He said Santorum’s comments, besides being insensitive to gay people, show
that Santorum believes the government should be able to “come into your
bedroom and regulate what you do. So much for ‘compassionate
conservatism.’
“We want Iraqis to be free. Apparently we bring freedom
to people, but get rid of it here.”
Democrats and other critics have compared Santorum’s
remarks to those in December 2002 by then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott
about Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist campaign for the presidency. Lott
resigned his Senate leadership post over those comments.
Mahler said Lott’s remarks were offensive as well. He
said Santorum’s remarks are, in a way, worse than Lott’s.
“He was talking about someone’s past, in the past 50
years,” Mahler said. “Santorum is talking about right now.”
Santorum in his statement said his comments were specific
to the pending Supreme Court case and “to the right of privacy and the
broader implications of a ruling on other state privacy laws.
“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.
“Again, my discussion with The Associated Press was
about the Supreme Court privacy case, the constitutional right to privacy in
general, and in the context of the impact on the family.”
Questioned at the White House news briefing, press
secretary Ari Fleischer had no comment on Santorum’s remarks, saying he had
not seen the “the entire context of the interview. And ... I haven’t
talked to the president about it so I really don’t have anything to
offer.”
U.S. Rep. Phil English of Erie, R-3rd Dist., is in Brazil
and was unavailable for comment.
Separately, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry
issued a statement criticizing Santorum’s comments and assailing the White
House for remaining silent “while their chief lieutenants make divisive and
hurtful comments that have no place in our politics.”
“Every day in our country, gay and lesbian Americans
get up, go to work, pay their taxes, support their families and contribute to
the nation they love. These comments take us backwards in America,” said the
Massachusetts senator.
The DSCC also urged Santorum’s fellow Pennsylvania
senator, Republican Arlen Specter of Philadelphia, to repudiate the remarks.
Specter will be seeking a fifth term in the Senate in 2004.
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