Yesterday I noted that Marc Racicot, chairman of the Republican National Committee, was making an effort to reach out to gay voters, telling the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay group, that the GOP has a “commitment to inclusion.”
I think Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R) missed Racicot’s memo.
As you’ve probably heard by now, Santorum was giving an interview to the Associated Press about a case at the Supreme Court dealing with a Texas law that bans sodomy in the state. Not surprisingly, Santorum is taking Texas’ side in the legal fight.
“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 in his AP interview. “All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family. And that’s sort of where we are in today’s world, unfortunately. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn’t exist, in my opinion, in the United States Constitution.”
There’s not a lot of gray area to the comments. Santorum, who serves as the party caucus chair, making him the party’s third highest ranking party leader in the Senate, would provide no more legal protections for gays than he would for those who commit incest or polygamy. To him, they are moral equivalents, and as such, he sees no problem with government prohibitions on what consenting adults do in their bedroom.
Santorum has subsequently added that he has “no problem” with homosexuality. I’m not really sure what to make of this remark. He doesn’t have a “problem” with gays, he just approves of the government banning their private, intimate behavior.
Naturally, gay groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, just weeks after hearing about the GOP’s tolerance, have condemned Santorum’s remarks, as have nearly all of the Democratic presidential candidates. The religious right groups who were so concerned about Marc Racicot’s “gay outreach” came out in droves to defend the Senator and his controversial remarks. Santorum, for what it’s worth, has said he will not apologize and has stopped talking about the flap, which is probably the smart thing to do.
All of the whining the religious right was doing about the GOP cozying up to gay people looks pretty silly in light of the Santorum fiasco. The truth is it will probably take decades, if not generations, for Republican lawmakers and activists to tolerate gay people and accept even the most basic legal protections for the minority. As the New York Times noted this morning, this is the same party that merely chuckled eight years ago when Dick Armey, then the House Majority Leader, called Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a gay lawmaker, “Barney Fag.” Moreover, three years ago Trent Lott, then Senate Majority Leader, said gays had an illness similar to “kleptomaniacs” but faced no criticism from his party.
Speaking of Lott, many have drawn comparisons between Lott’s racist remarks that forced him from his Senate leadership post and Santorum’s anti-gay comments. I can appreciate the fact that they’re both bigots who deserve censure, but I don’t see this controversy taking a similar toll on Santorum. The Republican Party, in the 21st century, doesn’t want to appear racist against African Americans, but it doesn’t care if it’s seen as homophobic.
The Republican Party’s bigotry problem, however, doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. Now it’s Santorum who hates gays. Before Santorum it was Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.) who outrageously compared African Americans to drug addicts. Before Cubin it was Trent Lott saying America would have been better off with a segregationist president in 1948. Before Lott it was Rep. Cass Ballenger (R-N.C.) saying he had “segregationist feelings” after dealing with an African American congresswoman from Georgia. Before Ballenger it was Rep. John Cooksey (R-La.) who insulted Muslims everywhere by saying, “If I see someone comes in that’s got a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over.”
The list, sadly, goes on and on. In every instance except Lott, Republican leaders just sat on their hands and remained silent, refusing to condemn the bigotry. And like the others, Santorum will probably face no political repercussions for his hateful narrow-mindedness.