Posted on 05/05/2003 7:21:20 PM PDT by foreverfree
Editorial: Santorum: Confused, bigoted, disturbing
May 05, 2003
Oh Santorum, you’ve done it again.
In his own myopic Mr. Magoo fashion, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) has once again shown just how confused he is when it comes to navigating in the real world. But unlike the famous cartoon character, Santorum is neither charming nor funny.
In fact, downright disturbing is the best way to describe this federal legislator, considering his recent remarks regarding homosexual Americans.
Two weeks ago, in an interview with The Associated Press, he said he believed state lawmakers had the right to ban gay sex or other private behaviors that were "antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family."
But he didn’t stop there.
"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," said Santorum.
This isn’t the first time the conservative Catholic senator has mixed church with state.
In his 2000 campaign for re-election, he told the Daily Times editorial board that he wanted to ban abortion because he knew for a fact that life begins at conception.
When asked for the empirical data supporting his assertion he said it was simply "common sense."
That has to be news to hundreds of thousands of scholars, scientists and theologians, both "pro-life" and "pro-choice," who have debated the question of when life begins, for centuries.
In truth, Santorum was presenting, as fact, an opinion most likely predicated on religious beliefs. Even more alarming, he believes it is the basis for federal law.
But, it’s not only on issues as emotional as reproductive rights and sexuality that Santorum has proven his confusion.
During his last campaign visit to the Daily Times, he also told the editorial board that the annual average cost of prescription drugs for senior citizens in Pennsylvania is $500. After just about every editorial board member fell on the floor, aghast at his proclamation, he quickly issued the disclaimer, "It’s not my data."
Again, a rather unsettling revelation considering this man is basing legislation proposals on that information.
So, we weren’t entirely surprised when Santorum managed to alienate at least 10 percent of the American population by equating their sexuality with criminal behavior.
We aren’t even convinced that he was being mean-spirited or bigoted. He probably was just, once again, uninformed and, definitely confused.
In any case, he managed to do enough political damage that, last Thursday, two of his fellow Republican senators - one of them Pennsylvania’s elder senator, Arlen Specter - joined Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., in calling for expansion of federal penalties for acts of violence against homosexuals.
Specter denies that he is co-sponsoring the hate-crime legislation to make amends for Santorum’s horrendous gaffe, and that’s fine. Whatever his motivation, his aim is sound.
Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., was a little more pointed in commenting on the reason for co-sponsoring the bill that Kennedy says has the support of 175 law enforcement and religious groups.
"We want to say that there is no family value to be served in opposing hate-crime legislation," noted Smith.
We hope Rick Santorum gets the point and votes accordingly.
©The Daily Times 2003
foreverfree
How silly. The fact is Santorum was commenting on a case about homosexual sodomy.... to claim that his statement on laws regarding privacy and consentual adult acts had nothing to do with "gay" issues is absurd.
The writer merely added the word "gay" to put Santorum's statement in it's proper context. He was talking about a case of gay sex.
I agree. Santorum should have clarified himself by letting us all know if he supports police being able to barge into people's bedrooms and arrest and jail them for homosexual or adulterous acts.
It is an incontrovertible if inconvenient FACT.
In Defense of Rick Santorum: His Own Words
CNN.com ^ |
April 22, 2003 | Associated Press
Posted on 04/22/2003 5:58 PM PDT by Icey
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The following is an an unedited section of the Associated Press interview, taped April 7, with Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pennsylvania. Words that couldn't be heard clearly on the tape are marked (unintelligible).
AP: If you're saying that liberalism is taking power away from the families, how is conservatism giving more power to the families?
SANTORUM: Putting more money in their pocketbook is one. The more money you take away from families is the less power that family has. And that's a basic power. The average American family in the 1950s paid (unintelligible) percent in federal taxes. An average American family now pays about 25 percent.
The argument is, yes, we need to help other people. But one of the things we tried to do with welfare, and we're trying to do with other programs is, we're setting levels of expectation and responsibility, which the left never wanted to do. They don't want to judge. They say, Oh, you can't judge people. They should be able to do what they want to do. Well, not if you're taking my money and giving it to them. But it's this while idea of moral equivalency. (unintelligible) My feeling is, well, if it's my money, I have a right to judge.
AP: Speaking of liberalism, there was a story in The Washington Post about six months ago, they'd pulled something off the Web, some article that you wrote blaming, according to The Washington Post, blaming in part the Catholic Church scandal on liberalism. Can you explain that?
SANTORUM: You have the problem within the church. Again, it goes back to this moral relativism, which is very accepting of a variety of different lifestyles. And if you make the case that if you can do whatever you want to do, as long as it's in the privacy of your own home, this "right to privacy," then why be surprised that people are doing things that are deviant within their own home? If you say, there is no deviant as long as it's private, as long as it's consensual, then don't be surprised what you get. You're going to get a lot of things that you're sending signals that as long as you do it privately and consensually, we don't really care what you do. And that leads to a culture that is not one that is nurturing and necessarily healthy. I would make the argument in areas where you have that as an accepted lifestyle, don't be surprised that you get more of it.
AP: The right to privacy lifestyle?
SANTORUM: The right to privacy lifestyle.
AP: What's the alternative?
SANTORUM: In this case, what we're talking about, basically, is priests who were having sexual relations with post-pubescent men. We're not talking about priests with 3-year olds, or 5-year olds. We're talking about a basic homosexual relationship. Which, again, according to the world view sense is a perfectly fine relationship as long as it's consensual between people. If you view the world that way, and you say that's fine, you would assume that you would see more of it.
AP: Well, what would you do?
SANTORUM: What would I do with what?
AP: I mean, how would you remedy? What's the alternative?
SANTORUM: First off, I don't believe --
AP: I mean, should we outlaw homosexuality?
SANTORUM: I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts. As I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships. And that includes a variety of different acts, not just homosexual. I have nothing, absolutely nothing against anyone who's homosexual. If that's their orientation, then I accept that. And I have no problem with someone who has other orientations. The question is, do you act upon those orientations? So it's not the person, it's the person's actions. And you have to separate the person from their actions.
AP: OK, without being too gory or graphic, so if somebody is homosexual, you would argue that they should not have sex?
SANTORUM: We have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that has sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose. because, again, I would argue, they undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family. And 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. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was created, it was created in Griswold -- Griswold was the contraceptive case -- and abortion. And now we're just extending it out. And the further you extend it out, the more you -- this freedom actually intervenes and affects the family. You say, well, it's my individual freedom. Yes, but it destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that's antithetical to strong healthy families. Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.
Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality --
AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.
SANTORUM: And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society.
AP: Sorry, I just never expected to talk about that when I came over here to interview you. Would a President Santorum eliminate a right to privacy -- you don't agree with it?
SANTORUM: I've been very clear about that. The right to privacy is a right that was created in a law that set forth a (ban on) rights to limit individual passions. And I don't agree with that. So I would make the argument that with president, or senator or congressman or whoever Santorum, I would put it back to where it is, the democratic process. If New York doesn't want sodomy laws, if the people of New York want abortion, fine. I mean, I wouldn't agree with it, but that's their right. But I don't agree with the Supreme Court coming in.
I believe this is called sodomy--anal sex--between two males. Why this is called "gay," is strange, very strange.
Killed by the unions like so many other good papers.
We've been over this months and months ago. The 2 men left their door unlocked. A third man who was a roommate a homosexual lover of one of the men made the call. In fact there was supposedly a police history of the men making false calls on each other (possibly other attempts at getting "caught" in the act?).
At any rate, a false armed assault call was placed to the police. The door was unlocked when the police arrived. They did not "barge in"; in an emergency situation they do not need a search warrant to enter your house. Would they need one if it was on fire?
The nature of the evidence observed by the police could be put into question although I doubt that they would be able to walk away without any charges if the 2 men had been smoking crack in the bedroom instead.
The 2 men continued having anal sex once the officers entered the apartment and they continued the act even once the officers entered the bedroom.
The 2 men were arrested (possibly because they were refusing to cease the act in the presence of the officers leading them to believe that the two men would continue to violate the law and resume the act after being ticketed). They were ticketed (I don't recall the fine, I think that the maximum is $200). The third man was sentenced to 30 days in jail for making the deliberate false report (although I think I read that he only served 15 days, it could have been faulty reporting though). That third man is now dead after an assault leaving a friend's place (according to an HPD report I found online recently that was dated 2000).
Ummm ... not according to anything I know. The Bulletin was done in by the TV - it was an evening paper, so the news was stale by the time people got it. Circulation dropped, and the paper lost money.
Read up on it here.
You might note the Unions gave $4.9 million in concessions (quite a lot more in monetary terms 25 years ago) in the midst of the huge 1979-1982 recession.
Its a sad thing, because it was definitely the better paper - and it was a real paper that told you everything you needed to know. The Inquirer has been an internationalist liberal screed for quite some time - ever since Annenberg bought it from Col. Elverson.
All Things Queer - GAY & LESBIAN ISSUES - coverage, commentary & community
The underlying case was a result of an arrest of two men, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyrone Garner, who were arrested when police entered Lawrence's home and found the men having sex. They were charged with "deviant homosexual conduct," a misdemeanor which is punishable by a fine of up to $500 and spent the night of their arrest in jail.The officers had been responding to a call from a third men that there was an armed intruder in the home. The caller turned out to be Garner's roommate and he was later sentenced to 30 days in jail for filing a false report.
At trial, Lawrence and Garner pleaded "no contest" in order to create an appealable finding of guilt.
The call that led to the arrest of the two Houston gay men came from Roger David Nance. Harris County Sheriff's Department officers responded to his report of an armed man in an apartment complex, and he directed them to the apartment where Garner and Lawrence were found. Nance pleaded no contest and served 15 days in jail for filing a false police report. David Jones, an attorney for the two men, cited Nance's motive as a "personality conflict between the caller and the people in the apartment."
Robert Royce Eubanks, who was Garner’s roommate, was convicted of filing the false report and was sentenced to 30 days in jail
Police entered the unlocked apartment after a third man, Robert Royce Eubanks, falsely reported an armed intruder was there. Officers found Lawrence and Garner having consensual sex. The men were arrested and charged with deviant homosexual conduct, a misdemeanor. Eubanks, who was Garner's roommate, was convicted of filing a false report and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Police said Garner and Eubanks had a history of filing false reports on each other.
Robert Royce Eubanks, 40, has since been sentenced to 15 days for filing a false report with the police. He is said to know both of the men arrested. Speculation is that jealousy played a role in his placing the call to the police.
If they can speculate that it was one man being catty to another, then I can speculate that the call was a set up for a court challenge of Texas law.
I've seen the name of the caller reported 2 different ways (an alias?) "Roger David Nance" and "Robert Royce Eubanks".
I had earlier only seen the Eubanks name and this is what I found then:
Date: October 17, 2000
Subject: Incident at 3942 FaulknerA man assaulted in the 3900 block of Faulkner on October 10 has died from his injuries.
Robert Royce Eubanks, 42, suffered severe head wounds and was pronounced dead last Saturday (Oct. 14) at Memorial Hermann Hospital.
Eubanks had left a residence on Faulkner, where he had been visiting a friend, and was seen walking in the 3900 block of Faulkner. Someone from the residence on Faulkner contacted 911 and Eubanks was transported to the hospital.
There is no known motive or suspect in this case at this time.
Anyone with information in this incident is urged to contact the Houston Police Homicide Division at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
The case was assigned to Officer L.D. Garretson of the HPD Homicide Division.
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