April 23, 2003
DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN, ONLY
Just when you start to feel like all the talk of Republicans as
being anti-sex prudes is just so much political demonizing, one of them
will come out and prove it. Sen. Rick Santorum is currently enduring a
shitstorm of bad press of his own making, by saying "If the Supreme
Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) 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."
href="http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2003_04
_20_dish_archive.html#200185854">Andrew Sullivan was correct in
pointing out that's not exactly what he said.
He noted that a reporter for
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/23/national/23TALK.html">The
New York Times points out that the parenthetical gay added to
the statement by the Associated Press was inferred by a following
sentence by Santorum saying "All of those things are antithetical to a
healthy, stable, traditional family." Here's a fuller excerpt:
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.
That statement immediately followed one where he said that our
problematic obsession with a (nonexistent) right to privacy began with
a landmark Griswold case that legalized certain forms of contraception.
And here's where we get down to it:
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.
So it's not just homosexual behavior that Santorum finds worthy
of legal restrictions. It's any sexual behavior that doesn't serve to
support marriage and resulting in children. So if you happen to be a
single person that wants to use birth control when you're having sex
with someone you don't intend to marry, you are screwed. Forget the
birth control and limit yourself to some good ol' fashioned sodomy?
Even more screwed. I'm guessing any person that ever appeared in an
episode of HBOs
href="http://www.hbo.com/apps/schedule/ScheduleServlet?CHANNEL=All+Chan
nels&ACTION_SEARCH=SEARCH&KEY=TITLE&VALUE=real+sex">Real Sex
series would be jailed for crimes against the family.
It's ironic that a Republican party that is constantly calling
for the government to "get off the backs of business" is now calling
for us to "get off the backs" of whomever we might happen to be
sexually involved with. The GOP needs to knock this guy down a peg or
twelve in the leadership hierarchy because he confirms every suspicion
ever held about the anti-sex positions held by some in the party. If
Mr. Santorum feels like his morals call for a very restrictive take on
human sexuality, that's fine. Power to him. It's definitely not his
role as a legislator to try to fob it off on the rest of us though.
Read his whole interview
here.
Posted by Lexiphane at April 23, 2003 2:31 PM
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