Rick Santorum continues to campaign hard for that elusive homophobe vote (3% of likely Republican voters according to Gallup) charging through front lines of the same-sex marriage battle to attack gay parents. He told a crowd in Spencer, Iowa: “I’ve had people who actually worked for me who were gays. And… if they did their job like anybody else, and we were able to work together, we did work together…. If they can do their job, they should.” This is his way of showing that he’s not a bigot, basically saying, “I’ll even hire a homo, as long as they don’t go prancing around like a drag queen or butching it up too obvious-like.” So obviously, not a bigot. (Besides, try getting something done in Washington without a gaggle of gays on your staff). If that guy from A-List Dallas was willing to be seen in public with Ann Coulter, I suspect Santorum could find a willing gay collaborator or two.
Gay families, Santorum goes on to say, are a going to “destabilize the American family, … change the basic value structure of our country to accommodate… that lifestyle.” He says that he does not want to change US law, but preventing gay couples from adopting, insemination, or sperm donations would in fact change the rules for the untold hordes of gay couples that are using just those means to have a family.
According to Santorum, the best choice is for a child to live with its biological parents, but adoption is swell too, so long as it’s… surprise!… done by a hetero married couple. I suppose this exempts beloved gay aunts, uncles, and grandparents from adopting their family members unless no hetero couple could be found.
Santorum sews it all up with all the flair of a second-rate corporate attorney (a new job, perhaps, once he’s given his lectures and sold his books?), saying:
“It [presumably gay families] does in fact affect society, it affects children, it affects families, it affects educational systems, it affects people’s freedom of religion, it changes the entire value structure of our country, it undermines family, it undermines faith. You know what? We respect the ability of people to live their lives the way they want to live it, but don’t try to change society so, to, devalue things that we value in society.”
In Santorum’s world, religious freedom includes the go-ahead to use democracy to strip people of their right to the most fundamental unit of society. He claims he doesn’t want to change the law, but gays are already breeding legally. He says he wants to protect families, but this does not extend to gay families. We could presume a Santorum presidency would seek to prevent gay couples from using the free market techniques used by countless straight couples to create and expand their families. One wonders if President Santorum would be satisfied when no gay couple can legally raise a child, or if he would create a Youth Corps to go door-to-door and physically take minors away from their same-sex parents.
Of course no such presidency is likely to come to pass, because a BachmannPerryCainGingrichesque surge would bring the harsh light of reality crashing down on Santorum’s logically crippled House of Cards. In the world of an average Santorum voter or equally hard-line social conservative, their family is hurt by a same-sex couple being married and having kids.
One wonders how.
One also wonders if such concerns overshadow the good that is created when kids are brought up by parents who love them and take care of them. Parents who needed more than forgetting to pull out to have a family. Parents who put some thought into the process… which is the case for many straight parents but, one surmises, nearly all gay parents. It seems that thoughtful parents would be the best parents, since they would strive to raise thoughtful kids.
But Santorum’s audience is the Faithful, not the Thoughtful. In his mind, and the minds of a politically active minority, it’s Us Versus Them and whoever has the most babies wins.
“You know what? We respect the ability of people to live their lives the way they want to live it, but don’t try to change society so, to, devalue things that we value in society.”
What a demagogue and a liar! Exactly how stupid does Santorum think we all are that we cannot spot his feeble little logic tricks? What he said in essence is that we respect the right of “other people” to live differently from “us”, so long as they don’t live differently from us. They can live differently from us, so long as they don’t affect the way we live, but living differently from us affects the way we live, so they can’t. And he thinks he sounds intelligent?
Santorum’s actions serve to comfort me. I am a gay man. I’m also a veteran. I’m perfectly happy in life. That Santorum is so concerned about the sanctity of marriage that he feels it necessary to cast opprobrium on gay marriage serves to prove how out of touch with reality he is.
The institution is a menace to itself, which is why +/- 40% of all US marriages end in divorce, although that number has fallen somewhat in the past few years. However, US marriages are also on the decline, so it may be possible that fewer people are jumping into marriage who aren’t certain that they’re compatible. Regardless, it’s not gays who cause 4 out of 10 marriages to fail; it’s heterosexuals’ fault.
Santorum knows these things, but they’re not controversial enough on their own to garner media attention for him, so he has to embark on a campaign of hate. Besides, hate is the Christian way. “Love the sinner, hate the sin”. Well, anytime hate is part of your canon, regardless of its application, many of your followers will misapply it. Also, the “sin” is only such if you label it so barring violence or loss to others. Therefore, Santorum, keep your god-laws to yourself as I choose not to participate in your madness. Unlike you, I’ve helped defend this great nation and have earned the right as a veteran to marry whom I choose. You’ve done nothing but spread hate. Go Jesus!!
Thank you, FreeRangeRadical! I wish more people were willing to challenge the merits of marriage as an institution. I certainly think that every couple should be entitled to decide whether or not they will marry. However, I do believe that a couple doesn’t necessarily need the institution of marriage in order to form stable, loving, and life-long families.
Lastly, thank you for your service! You deserve happiness wherever you can find it.
To FreeRangeRadical,
Thank you for your excellent comment. I would just point out in reaction to your comment, “Unlike you, I’ve helped defend this great nation and have earned the right as a veteran to marry whom I choose.”, that Santorum would undoubtedly respond that, regardless of your service in defense of our nation, since you are gay, that means that, in fact, you did not advance the defense of our nation, but actually hindered it by destabilizing the readiness and esprit de corp of the military. So, in fact, you owe us an apology for undermining our defense. I hope you are sufficiently ashamed of yourself.
I think FreeRangeRadical and I must have walked some of the same halls on Sheridan under good ol’ Buford Tuton.
Santorum has gone from irrelevant to something even less than irrelevant. His inability to comprehend his own irrelevance speaks to the wisdom of the Pennsylvania voters who refused to return him to the Senate.
Gays destabilize families by gay people coming out and families not being able to accept that they don’t have a say in who finds who attractive. If people were stable in their own practices, it wouldn’t matter who wants to marry, so long as the two people themselves are stable.
It’s amazing to see desperate Republicans trying to court the bigot vote
A truly, TRULY sick man. Pathetic.