Posted on 04/27/2003 3:11:30 PM PDT by MadIvan
This was the week that Democrats in Washington had been awaiting since last November's elections. The end of war in Iraq was supposed to mark a return to "normal" politics, permitting an airing of long-neglected economic and social issues and allowing Democrats to press what they assumed would be their natural advantage. But a bizarre spat over gay rights that has obsessed much of Washington in recent days indicates that America's domestic policy, like its foreign policy, may be following new rules.
The controversy started with Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who is the third-ranking Republican in the Senate. Mr Santorum is rightwing (he took his seat in the Newt Gingrich landslide of 1994), faintly absurd (he used to work as a lobbyist for the World Wrestling Federation), and unloved ("Santorum?" Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska senator once remarked. "Isn't that Latin for asshole?") Interviewed about family values by the Associated Press, Mr Santorum alluded to a case now being argued before the US Supreme Court. In Lawrence v Texas, gay-rights groups are seeking to overturn Texas's laws against homosexual sodomy. Texas is one of only four states with such laws still on the books, and Mr Santorum rose to their defence. "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home," he said, "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."
In any western democracy at any moment over the past decade, to invoke homosexuality and incest in the same breath would have had a predictable sequel. First, denunciation for insensitivity. Second, grovelling apologies accompanied by claims of misquotation. And finally, punishment of the sort meted out to Trent Lott, the former Senate Republican leader, in December (after he expressed nostalgia for Southern segregation) and to Jim Moran, a Democratic congressman, in March (after he alleged that the US had been led into war by the machinations of powerful Jews).
The denunciations duly came. Barney Frank, a gay Congressman, accused Mr Santorum of "outright bigotry". The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee called on Mr Santorum to resign his leadership post. David Smith, a lawyer for the gay Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which had filed an amicus curiae brief in the Lawrence case, complained that "putting homosexuality on the same moral plane as incest is repulsive".
But there the story line faltered. Mr Santorum did not apologise or claim that he had been misquoted. So far, there is little sign that his job is in danger. There are even indications that he is winning the argument in the eyes of the public, as Will Saletan, the left-leaning political correspondent for the online magazine Slate was first to remark. The HRC, Mr Saletan noted, had a hard time distinguishing homosexuality from other consensual conduct on neutral principles. It resorted instead to moral claims. The group argued, for instance, that the state has a "compelling interest" in preventing incest, but was unable to say what that interest was. "I think Santorum is wrong," Mr Saletan concluded. "But I can't explain why, and so far, neither can the Human Rights Campaign."
As a result, the attacks on Mr Santorum sounded sanctimonious. The Democrats' best-funded presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry, said: "Every day in our country, gay and lesbian Americans get up, go to work, pay their taxes, support their families and contribute to the nation they love." But so do countless prostitutes and (in the south-west, at least) a good number of polygamists.
Mr Santorum's arguments are rooted in an unfortunate quirk of American constitutional development. Alone among major democracies, America lacks comprehensive abortion legislation. Congress has been too cowardly to take that bull by the horns. Instead it has a Supreme Court precedent, Roe v Wade, which relies on a controversial "privacy-rights doctrine" advanced in the 1965 Griswold birth-control case. Many subsequent claims to sexual rights have been advanced under the privacy rubric, and the campaign against Texas's sodomy laws is one of them. As the HRC's brief puts it, "We think it manifestly clear that Texas's sodomy law infringes on a fundamental right shared by the entire community, the right to be free from governmental intrusion into, and criminalisation of, private sexual relations between consenting adults."
In embracing the privacy doctrine, the HRC fell into a trap. Whether someone wants to create a moral hierarchy of sexual comportment - one that would place homosexuality above, say, incest - is constitutionally speaking off the point. The Supreme Court has consistently used the privacy doctrine to shield sexual rights from moral criticism; all that matters under the privacy doctrine is consent. Mr Santorum took exquisite care to respect this distinction. "Not to pick on homosexuality," he explained. "It's not, you know, man-on-child, man-on-dog, or whatever the case may be."
What a nifty rhetorical trick! Homosexuality is indeed in a different category from sex with children and animals. But, as Mr Santorum implied, it falls in the same category as many disreputable forms of sex such as prostitution, incest between adults, and polygamy - all of which are consensual. His argument was the one now being made by defenders of Texas's sodomy laws: the Supreme Court cannot open the door to gay rights without establishing other rights that Americans would find repugnant.
A question remains: if these conservative arguments are so constitutionally strong, why has it taken until now for a conservative politician to make them? It is tough to say. It could be that Mr Santorum is just a brave, or reckless, man. It could be that following President George W. Bush's successful war, Americans are extending their indulgent good feeling to his entire party, even its right wing. Or that, energised by war, they are simply airing an abiding national discomfort with homosexuality, which 55 per cent consider "morally wrong", according to Gallup. Whatever the cause of the change, Democrats must feel rather like Balzac's Colonel Chabert, trudging back from war to declare he is still alive, and finding that no one wants to hear it.
The writer is a senior editor at the Weekly Standard magazine
Regards, Ivan
Anyone who wants to "chastise" Santorum for his "stance" runs up against not "rhetoric" but the english language itself. He was expressing an idea here, his idea is not without merit, it was not said in any pejorative way and the media, in trying to hype this as another "foot in mouth" Republican blunder are actually having to explain what the argument is about...a constitutional issue.
Once Americans stop "feeling" and start "thinking" about the real issue, then they realize there is no other way to frame this debate.
It's because the internet, Rush and Fox News are relatively new developments.
Senator learns the hard way: Intolerant homosexual activists attack the free speech of those who disagree with them, Santorums comments reflected the arguments made in 14 amicus briefs submitted to the Supreme Court in support of Texass sodomy statute, as well as arguments heard in court on March 26. The attack on Santorum underscores that radical homosexual activists have no intention of recognizing anyone elses right to free speech.
Santorum Furor Shows Irrationality of Homosexuality Debate, Santorum is right, and need not make apologies to anyoneleast of all pro-homosexual groups. Because their arguments are irrational, these groups must resort to the demonization of their opponents. They use intimidation tactics to shut up all those who dare oppose their agenda of "confirming vice as virtue" under force of law. When it comes to National Defense and security, maybe America should start looking inward. Because the very liberating freedoms we are fighting for in the world arena are being not so subtly stolen from us by a PC crowd that demands that society make them comfortable with their vices.
Just where does the promotion of aberrant behavior as a civil right end? The entire premise is ludicrous, as anarchy is the inevitable result. Good states are classically defined by their promotion of societal common good as referenced in Aristotle's Politics. How can the legitimization of behavior that is so filthy it cannot be described in mixed company without conveying the most revolting feelings be considered "tending toward the common good"? The pro-sodomy lobby takes advantage of this very revulsion for homosexual acts, knowing full well that many individuals do not have the stomach for rightly describing them publicly.
[This is the consequence of conceding the field to militant homosexual advocates who politically bastardize the language. They tell us that sodomy is "gay," and that "sexual perversion" somehow evolved to "sexual deviance," then to "sexual preference," and finally to "sexual orientation"an evolution necessary to anesthetize the public as to what is really going on. The final "evolved" state, "sexual orientation," has been proven to be a lie many times over. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever indicating that an orientation to homosexual acts is innate and final. In fact, the evidence is to the contrary, with the absence of a "gay" gene admitted by homosexual researchers, and the success of reparative (ex-"gay") therapy admitted by representatives from the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychological Association.
Militant homosexual advocates need to look in the mirror before accusing anyone of being on the fringe. Homosexual journals and publications have promoted de facto child sexual abuse under the guise of "intergenerational intimacy"where the authors tell parents that they should welcome the "loving" pedophile into their homes.
[And how is standing up for the promotion of societal common good being extremist, in view of the considerable evidence that sodomy brings with it many serious physical and psychological consequences? It is common knowledge that the main reservoir for HIV/AIDS in America remains with the homosexual community, per the consistent statistics kept by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for years.
[To be compassionate does not mean lying to individuals about the consequences of their aberrant behavior. Integral to the definition of compassion is a desire to alleviate the cause of the distress. To confirm an individual in his/her vice is the opposite of compassion. Why is that truth so hard to see? Because "compassion"like the word "gay"has been redefined by militant homosexual advocates to mean confirming, not alleviating, the distress.]
The continued hypocrisy of Sens. [Tom] Daschle and [John] Kerry, who call themselves Catholic, is glaring in their demand that fellow Catholic Santorum step down. The church in this country should speak out in defense of politicians like Santorum who recognize that it is not enough to follow one's conscience. The conscience must be informed in accordance with the teachings of the Faith, especially the eternal truths of the Natural Law. ]
Again, what's next, a constitutional right to bestiality? After all, the pervert [bestialist] in question, I am sure, will ensure that his despicable acts are performed in privatewhich makes them OK, as privacy trumps all, right? No matter that the allowance of the private act wounds society severely. And can you imagine the gall of homosexual activists denouncing the analogy to incest because that behavior is "wrong" and "unhealthy"? Fifty years ago, until the perverted homosexual researcher Alfred Kinsey came along, homosexual acts were unspeakable. Advocates for the unnatural and unhealthy act of sodomy have no basis upon which to declare other perversions as immoral.
[Also, did you ever notice that when it comes to sexual hedonism, the only "choice" allowed is for sexual gratification? Certainly, the "pro-choice" disciples could care less about the baby's choice to survivehe is the one party who is never allowed a choice before being brutally killed by abortion.
[What is about to happen in the Supreme Court regarding the Texas decision for/against acts of sodomy is comparable to Roe v. Wade. That horrendous mistake must not be repeated. Sadly, we must remember that we're dealing with a court which, in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, incredibly said that every individual can define his own universe with applicable laws made to his choosing. His choice can take place without any consideration for the inevitable collision with his neighbors equally relevant universe. The author of that decision (Justice Anthony Kennedy) somehow calls himself a Catholic.
I agree. The idea of one man sticking his privates up another man's butt is far more repulsive than the idea of incest.
So is it now a political crime to paraphrase the United States Supreme Court?
Exactly right, and as Santorum well stated, "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual 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."
The good news is that according to the latest Gallup poll, 55% of Americans are against homosexuality and as this article indicates, Satorum is winning the argument in the eyes of the public. The funniest thing of all is that even the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) which is the largest national lesbian and gay political organization in the country couldn't explain why Santorum was wrong, LOL.
A question remains: if these conservative arguments are so constitutionally strong, why has it taken until now for a conservative politician to make them? It is tough to say. It could be that Mr Santorum is just a brave, or reckless, man.
I think he is a real man, a man who has remained steadfast in his beliefs, and who is willing to express them regardless of the consequences. He doesn't need to call his friends to defend him. Just by reading this article, look at how many Democrats have congregated to attack him, Barney Frank, John Kerry, the liberal media went berserk and even the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee wants Santorum to resign his leadership post. Yet, Santorum didn't apologize or say he was misquoted. Real men have my total admiration!
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