The first Senate Republican repudiation of Senator Santorum’s disgraceful comments about gay people’s relationships emerged today. Here’s Snowe: “Discrimination and bigotry have no place in our society, and I believe Senator Santorum’s unfortunate remarks undermine Republican principles of inclusion and opportunity.” You can say that again. But Chafee gets the real issue, which is not about gays as such, but about privacy and the power of government to police everyone’s bedrooms: “I thought his choice of comparisons was unfortunate and the premise that the right of privacy does not exist – just plain wrong. Senator Santorum’s views are not held by this Republican and many others in our party.” What a relief that some leaders are prepared to take this extremism on. And what does it say about the president and Bill Frist that they won’t?
KURTZ PUNTS: Stanely Kurtz’s critique of the New York Times’ coverage and defense of the “slippery slope” argument in terms of constitutional law are completely fair enough (even though I disagree). But they are not the point. Stanley simply ignores the implications of Santorum’s full comments, which clearly place Santorum in the position of believing that homosexual relationships should be criminalized, as well as equating homosexuality with child abuse and bestiality. Santorum’s full remarks reveal exactly that. Why does Stanley ignore what is clearly in the public record? Why is it up to decent Republicans like Tony Blankley and Jonah Goldberg to state the obvious? The answer is that many establishment Republicans believe that the criminalization of private gay sex is a legitimate position, even when they personally disagree with it. That’s how close they are to the fundamentalist right. That’s how little they care about individual liberties. I guess, as so many gloating liberals have emailed me to point out, I have been incredibly naive. I expected a basic level of respect for gay people from civilized conservatives. I’ve always taken the view that there are legitimate arguments about such issues as marriage rights or military service and so on; and that fair-minded people can disagree. And, of course, there are many fair-minded people among Republicans and conservatives who do not agree with Santorum, and I am heartened by their support, especially the Republican Unity Coalition and Marc Racicot, RNC head. But something this basic as the freedom to be left alone in own’s own home is something I naively assumed conservatives would obviously endorse – even for dispensable minorities like homosexuals. I was wrong. The conclusions to be drawn are obvious.
The Dish 