In Defence of Sen. Rick Santorum - Criticism of Gay Sex Acts is Not Equal to Racism

myself

[AveMaria]

If the Moderator will permit me, I want to post this message to express my concerns over the hysterical attacks on Sen. Rick Santorum, by the organized gay lobby.

I am new here, and I just registered, after having been a lurker for 3 weeks. I am from Philadelphia, and my representatives in the Senate are Arlen Spector and Rick Santorum. I am a political independent, who is fiscally liberal but conservative on social issues (I admire FDR, Truman, and LBJ). I have strong disagreements with Sen. Santorum's political philosophy mostly over issues concerning the poor and underprivileged in Philadelphia, and because I am from the Social Justice tradition of the Catholic Church, while he is more of a Calvinized Catholic on economic and social justice issues. But I take the teachings of the Church on traditional morality and family, very seriously. And part of those teachings obligate me to defend Santorum, a man I disagree with vigorously on economic issues, if I feel that he is being attacked unfairly. Here are some of the myths I want to challenge, as a way to help those who want to defend Santorum among progressive circles:

MYTH #1: The Constitution guarantees a right to Privacy.

The reality is that there is no right to privacy enshrined in the Constitution. There are many things you could do within the privacy of your own home that are illegal. It is illegal to use drugs in your own home, even if you may be using marijuana you cultivated as a potted plant at home, and did not buy from a dealer. And as Sen. Santorum pointed out so eloquently, polygamy, bigamy and Incest are illegal, even when practiced by consenting adults within the confines of their own home. What Sen. Santorum was trying to say is that - if a state has absolutely no right to regulate homosexual sodomy on privacy grounds, then on what legal basis would the state challenge a man living with three women, or a father having an affair with his 21 year old daughter?

MYTH #2: Sen. Santorum's statement challenged those strongly committed to diversity and multi-culturalism.

On the contrary. Most of the world's cultures and major religions do not agree on much. But one thing they all agree on, is that homosexual acts (not people) are sinful, repugnant, disgusting, sick, nauseating, and perverse. That is true if you are a traditionalist Catholic, a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, a conservative Protestant, an Orthodox Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a traditionalist Buddhist, a Sikh, etc. Even the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of the Tibetan Muslims, who has ties to Hollywood elites, is on record as having described homosexuality as a sin. I was amazed to discover that even the peace-loving and Pacifist Bahais, oppose gay sex acts. What more multi-culturalism can you ask for?

MYTH #3: Criticism of homosexual Acts is the same as racism.

So many people have suffered from the pain of racism in the past, and there are many racial minorities who suffer today in terms of housing discrimination, discrimination in department stores, restaurant tables, and other humiliations. Too often in the past, the Christian Church failed to forcefully condemn racial bigotry as a sin. As a way to compensate for such glaring injustice, many well meaning white liberal Christians who care about social justice issues as much as I do, are too willing to endorse deviant acts as "okay", as a way to prove to themselves that they are not bigots.

But they fail to realize the fact that sodomy is BEHAVIORAL ACT, and not an unchangeable physiological feature like skin color. The pain of racism is very real, because people cannot change their skin color. But men can will themselves not to commit acts of sodomy, by keeping their pants zipped up. Racial minorities understand this very clearly, and that is why a majority of blacks and hispanics in California supported the recent ballot proposition defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.

MYTH #4: Texas sodomy laws punish people for who they are, not what they do, because gays are born that way.

Let us assume that homosexuality is partly genetic. If you go to any state with sodomy laws, and declare publicly that your orientation is homosexual, you will not be arrested. But if the state learns that you dropped your pants and "did it" with someone of the same gender, that constitutes a sex act in violation of the sodomy laws. You are not being punished for your self-declared orientation. You are being punished for specific sex acts. Get it?

Another example. My family has a long history of alcoholism, and I believe that alcoholism is genetic and runs in families. But, although I am genetically inclined toward alcoholism, I do not fear being arrested on a DUI, simply because of my Irish alcoholic genes. In order to be arrested, I actually have to go to a pub, fill my gut with alcohol, and then drive recklessly on the freeway. But if I can keep my "alcohol genes" under control, then so can a person with a "gay" orientation.

[Brilliant]

Sodomy laws are not unconstitutional. We've had them for more than 200 years and there is nothing in the Constitution that discusses them. We don't need another Roe v. Wade.

[onedoug]

Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality

[AveMaria]

1. [.....Polygamy never applies to men and women, only to men. Equal protection under the law pretty much knocks that one down.....]

Actually, in parts of India, they have a marriage practice that is called Polyandry, in which a woman is allowed to marry two or more men. If immigrants from that culture of India were to move here, then that would take care of the equal protecton problem.

2. [.....Society has a vested interest in preventing deformed or genetically weak children as much as possible. Incestual intercourse and marriage must then be stopped....]

A more effective way of preventing deformed children, would be to sterilize adults born with birth defects. The US government carried out such acts until the 1960s. Would you support that?

But you have to remember that, Americans were so horrified at Hitler's eugenics programs after World War Two, that they outlawed the sterilization of people born with disabilities from the 1960s onwards.

The fact that American society today, permits people born with genetic defects to have children, but punishes people for incest, reflects the moral values that Americans hold dear to their hearts. Those moral values are reflected in their laws. Laws cannot be totally independent of the values of the people who pass such laws.

[mustapha mond]

SANTORUM for President 2008!!!

[AveMaria]

[....Sexual intercourse is an altogether different matter. If a man wants to have 20 women living in his house, and they all agree, and he's having sex with all of them, that's his right.....]

Actually, the 1890 Supreme Court ruling against polygamy specifically prevented Mormons from Utah from doing as you describe.

The ruling was clear in that, even if polygamous unions are not recognized by the government, and that the polygamous unions are only recognized among members of a particular religious sect, the state can still prosecute a man living with several wives. According to the law, it does not matter whether the state recognizes the union or not. Such polygamists still face the risk of being arrested.

[LWalk18]

Sodomy laws are not unconstitutional. We've had them for more than 200 years and there is nothing in the Constitution that discusses them.

We had laws banning interracial marriages in many states for 91 years, and many of the same arguments were used to maintain such laws until they were struck down by the Supreme Court.

[Eaglefixer]

Don't forget the ninth amendment to the constitution. This amendment was inserted to keep people from declaring that only declared rights exist. Therefore it can be infered that privacy is a natural right that was just not enumerated.

Discussion!

[Buckeye Bomber]

I said nothing about polygamous unions. I said sex with lots of people in one house. Does the government ban that?

[Buckeye Bomber]

I'd say that privacy is a natural right that was not declared. The founders could not have foreseen the degree of power the government would eventually try to take for itself. That's why they said undeclared rights belong to us also.

[Eaglefixer]

I believe that privacy is one of those undeclared rights as per the ninth amendment. That said no rights are totally inviolate, and there can be limits on any right.

The big question is where are the limits. What is reasonable to one person is unreasonable to another.

[Gee Wally]

Since when do people talk about the rights of the government to regulate us?

The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution provides: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The case before the Supreme Court has to do with whether or not the Federal Constitution prohibits a state from enacting and enforcing an anti-sodomy law. Up until the 1960's, the power of the states to do so would not have seriously been questioned. Since that time, however, the Supreme Court has discovered in penumbras, shadows, and emanations a wide-ranging "right to privacy" that somehow the framers of the Constitution and Supreme Court justices over the first 170 years of this Free Republic did not see. We no longer have constitutional governance. Rather, we are now governed by the super-legislature that is the unelected, life-time tenured justices of the Supreme Court who have to answer to no one but themselves.

[AveMaria]

[.....Just how are they enforced? A guy is arrested for living with several women of whom he refers as his wives? I suspect the laws are enforced by not allowing someone to legally marry while married to someone else. That is it.....]

Not, that is not it. I have studied the issue over the past ten years. Are you aware that in Utah, they have a women's organization that is supported by the liberal National Organization for Women, that is working to have Utah's polygamists arrested and jailed? http://www.polygamy.org/

One of the complaints of NOW and of the Utah-based anti-polygamy organization, Tapestry, is that the state of Utah is not enforcing laws preventing a man from living with several women. The fact is that, neither Utah nor the federal government, recognize those the polygamous unions blessed by fundamentalist Mormon sects. But that fact is not good enough for NOW, Tapestry, and their many liberal supporters. They will not be satisfied until all the fundamentalist Mormons living in polygamous unions are arrested and jailed, and that includes all adult men and women in consensual relationships.

Those liberal feminists are depriving members of fundamentalist Mormon sects of their right to privacy within their own homes. But the law is on the side of the feminist anti-polygamy activists.

That is exactly the same attitude that pro-family Americans such as Rick Santorum, are taking with regard to supporting the Texas sodomy laws against homosexual acts.

But, you see, the feminists at NOW, are opposed to enforcement of Texas anti-sodomy laws against gays, but they do not show similar sympathy for fundamentalist Mormon sects in Utah that practice polygamy.

And why are polygamists living openly in Colorado City, Utah, but not in other states of the union? Because anti-polygamy laws are strictly and rigorously enforced in all other 49 states, and it does not matter whether one attempts to legally register the marriages or not. Polygamous people in small sects of a few hundered people, with marriages that are only recognized among members of their sect, still face a very high risk of being arrested and jailed in all 49 states outside Utah.

[Buckeye Bomber]

"Actually, in parts of India, they have a marriage practice that is called Polyandry, in which a woman is allowed to marry two or more men. If immigrants from that culture of India were to move here, then that would take care of the equal protecton problem."

This is possibly the least logical, most nonsensical argument I have ever heard. Polygamy is one man marrying many women. As I said before, the government has the right to regulate marriage however it wants because it is a civil contract. If you want to tell me I can't live with 20 consenting adult women and have sex with them, go for it. You're wrong though. We'll see if any members of that society ever make it to this country with that belief in place. But nonetheless, in the United States, polygamy is female slavery.

2) Look, we can ban incestual marriage, and we do. Incestual sex between two consenting adults is a bad idea, but it isn't illegal. And if it is somewhere, it shouldn't be. What part of any of my statements leads you to believe I'd advocate the government being given the power to sterilize people? Are you paying attention to anything I'm saying? I want the government to interfere less in our lives. As a fan of FDR, I suppose you will disagree with me on this, but the government rarely if ever does things well. Regulating morality onto people's hearts is one thing I can't see the government doing at all.

3) Should the government be allowed to regulate masturbation? Because it involves pretty much the same rights here.

[Buckeye Bomber]

Should the states be allowed to ban masturbation? I asked this elsewhere, but I wanted to make sure you see the question.

[Buckeye Bomber]

One last point that I just noticed taking a look at Andrew Sullivan's website: the Texas law says that homosexuals can't do things that heterosexuals are allowed to do, i.e. anal sex. This is very very unconstitutional, no matter how you look at it. And this was Sully quoting Buckley from the National Review.

[AveMaria]

[....I said sex with lots of people in one house. Does the government ban that?...]

If the man and his female partners were to describe themselves as married, the answer is yes. The government bans that.

But I suppose if the man and his partners were to describe themselves as a hippie commune, the state may overlook that transgression.

But the man and his women describe themselves as "married" or the government was to hear from a third party that the man and his women consider themselves married, then they would be at risk of arrest and imprisonment.

That was the issue at stake, when the Supreme Court outlawed polygamy in the last century. Government agents and other Mormon-haters in the 1890s, went door-to-door in Mormon homes in Utah, looking for evidence that a man was ina polygamous relationship. As a result of such witch-hunts, many Mormons who were minding their own business in the privacy of their own homes, were arrested and jailed. As a result of the persecution, the mainstream Mormon Church was forced to formally disavow polygamy. But there are fundamentalist sects that have broken away from the main Mormon Church, which still live the polygamous lifestyle today.

Those very strict anti-polygamy laws remain in effect today. Gays should be thankful that their enemies are not as vigilant in monitoring their activities, as opponents of polygamy are in watching polygamous relationships.

[Buckeye Bomber]

Are you going to ignore my questions:

1) Should the state be allowed to ban masturbation?

2) If anal sex is legal for heterosexuals, why is it illegal for homosexuals? This is an especially troubling matter I just came across.

[Buckeye Bomber]

I never said anything about describing themselves as married. Marriage, as I've repeated so many times I'm surprised I haven't been warned to stop, is an activity subject to government regulation since it is a civil matter. Sex is not.

[AveMaria]

[....Incestual sex between two consenting adults is a bad idea, but it isn't illegal....]

Oh, yes, it is: http://www.lectlaw.com/files/sex05.htm

[Buckeye Bomber]

I see you're dancing around the real issues and attacking the little ones. Alright, it's illegal in Flordia. Ya got me. How about you answer my other questions now?