It hurts me to say this, Mr President, but your spokesman’s statement today on your behalf has just made matters far worse. Senator Santorum believes that gay people should be subject to criminal prosecution for their private, adult consensual relationships. He has equated homosexuality with the abuse of minors. He has associated homosexual relationships with bestiality. If that is an example of “inclusiveness,” then what would exclusiveness be? For the president to call the criminalization of an entire group of people the position of an “inclusive man” leaves me simply speechless. It indicates that the White House still doesn’t understand the damage that this incident is doing, the fact that it is beginning to make it simply impossible for gay people and their families – or any tolerant person – to vote for the president’s party.
NOW IT’S A CRISIS: Look, it’s possible to tolerate differences of opinion within the Republican party over homosexuality. It’s absolutely legitimate for some religious people to hold that gay sex is immoral, or to oppose marriage rights, and so on. I can happily live with that, and benefit from the dialogue. I defend their right to believe it and to say it. We can agree to disagree. But Santorum has gone far further than disagreement. He let it slip that he believes gays should be put in jail for our relationships. I’m sorry but that kind of statement is unacceptable, non-negotiable, intolerable. The Senator must withdraw it. I worry that the president means well but just doesn’t get it. So let me put it another way: Senator Santorum believes that the vice-president’s daughter should be made a criminal for her relationship. A criminal. Now do you see what I mean? Here’s what the newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times said today, in a classic statement of conservative principles:
We do not think Santorum should be stripped of his Senate leadership role for expressing deeply held religious views. But we do believe he does his nation and particularly the Republican Party a disservice by bracing himself in the door of society and trying to keep gay people out. They’re already in. The high schools where gays were terrorized when Santorum was a student now have gay/straight fellowship leagues. And one last point. How can we have any hope of creating a democratic government in Iraq free from domination by repressive religion if we cannot free our own laws of official faith-based biases inflicted on our fellow citizens?
Exactly.
SANTORUM’S THEOCRATIC RADICALISM: To see how radical Santorum’s position is, compare him, as this piece in today’s Washington Post does, with John F Kennedy. Kennedy drew a distinction between his public role as the president of a diverse country and his own private religious convictions. Santorum explicitly argues the opposite:
Santorum has declared that President John F. Kennedy’s vow to separate his faith from his policies was wrong. That approach has caused “much harm in America,” Santorum said in an interview with a Catholic newspaper last year. “All of us have heard people say, ‘I privately am against abortion, homosexual marriage, stem cell research, cloning. But who am I to decide that it’s not right for somebody else?’ It sounds good. But it is the corruption of freedom of conscience,” he told the National Catholic Reporter.
Not only is Santorum damaging the Republican position among gays and their families, he is busy damaging it among Catholics. Most Catholics support John F Kennedy’s position; in fact, they take it for granted. It was a critical event in the emergence of Catholics as an equal, proud minority. Now Santorum, with Bush’s apparent blessing, is intent on destroying that compact. In fact, in this case, he is going much further. Even strict Catholics who believe homosexual sex is a grave sin nevertheless draw the Thomist distinction between sins and crimes. Just because something may be a sin doesn’t mean it should mean jail. In fact, many things – especially in the private realm – fall into that category. But by arguing for the criminalization of gay sex, Santorum goes beyond even the traditional position and heads for a theocratic one. The more he seems to represent the face of the Republican party, the more fair-minded people will simply leave it, fear it, or vote against it. As they should.
The Dish 