Santorum
is All Talk, Not Much Listening
A meeting with parents of gay children is brusque.
Philadelphia
Inquirer, May 15, 2003
P.O. Box 8263, Philadelphia, PA 19101
Fax: 215-854-4483
Email: Inquirer.opinion@phillynews.com
By Melina Waldo
As the parent of a gay son, I visit Washington
occasionally to lobby Congress on equal rights. But nothing prepared me for
the heated meeting I had with Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) two weeks ago.
Our son came out as gay during his freshman year at Penn
State. Learning that he was gay was as unexpected as it was disturbing to my
husband and me.
Worried about his future and afraid of losing our close
relationship with him, fortunately I found a group called Parents, Families
and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. PFLAG is a wonderful organization of caring
people with whom I could discuss my fears, and learn from gay people the
reality of their lives.
PFLAG’s annual “lobby days” encourage our members
to go to Washington to meet with our representatives. On one of these annual
trips, I had an encounter with on Capitol Hill with a clergyman who loudly
interrupted me and pushed me as I was being interviewed by a reporter.
My son told me at the time: “You’re their worst
nightmare, Mom!” He explained that the last thing the far right wants people
to see is a mother speaking up for her gay child.
That minister is old by now and Jesse Helms and Strom
Thurmond are retired; but lest we advocates of equal rights for our gay loved
ones grow complacent, along comes Santorum to take up the torch.
What was to have been a routine visit to Washington took
on an unexpected urgency when Santorum, in an Associated Press interview
discussing the upcoming Supreme Court review of the Texas sodomy law, compared
our gay and lesbian children to criminals, linking the rights of homosexuals
to pedophiles, polygamists and people who commit incest.
Such false and inflammatory remarks from one so high in
our government could not go unanswered. Fran Kirschner, president of PFLAG
Philadelphia, through great persistence, obtained an appointment with the
senator.
Fran; her husband, Allen; my husband, Dick, and I set out
for Washington on the morning of May 1. We hoped to appeal to Santorum on a
parent-to-parent basis, not to discuss policy, especially because we were told
we would have only 10 minutes.
How to express the hurt to our families, the fears about
our children’s safety, and the contributions of gay and lesbian Americans?
We spoke for a few minutes with his aide—who, by the
way, could teach his boss something about respect and manners—and then the
senator strode in. In my heart at that moment were every gay person who ever
told me his or her story, every injustice against gay people known to me, and
of course, my own dear son.
As a shorthand way of putting a human face on the issue
for him, I placed in front of Santorum a photo of my son and me at my 60th
birthday celebration, and something else, which I described as one of my most
precious possessions. He barely gave them a glance.
We tried valiantly to make him see the connection between
his awful remarks and damage to our families. Hateful words give permission to
those who would harm our loved ones.
We talked about our children; he lectured us on the
nonexistence of the right to privacy.
We said he was elected to represent all the people of the
commonwealth; he talked about his duty to uphold the Constitution (his
version).
I objected to his interpretation of the right to privacy,
insisting that most legal scholars did not agree with him. I told him the law
can distinguish consensual acts between two adults expressing their love for
one another and incest. He told me that he was a lawyer, implying, of course,
that I am not.
He was arrogant, belligerent, argumentative and
condescending. His vigorous defense of himself stretched the meeting to a half
hour or more.
He blamed the media for the uproar: He was misquoted,
misunderstood, taken out of context. I wondered what had become of the virtue
of taking responsibility for one’s words and deeds that conservatives love
to preach to others.
I found in him the perfect incarnation of the closed
mind. And, yes, as reported, he did trip over a chair in his haste to leave
the meeting.
The story, I believe, has implications far beyond the gay
community and its supporters, numerous though we are. Santorum and others like
him have a view of our beloved country at odds with what the vast majority of
Americans want.
The irony of our having just waged a war for the freedom
of Iraqis as we lose our rights at home should not escape our notice. I
believe Santorum and his far-right supporters oppose civil rights for gay
citizens. The question for all Americans is: Who’s next?
Oh, and that most precious possession I tried to get the
senator to look at? It was a birthday card from my son that showed a child
drawing a heart in the sand. It reads: “Before I could spell it, before I
could say it, I loved you, Mom.”
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