Rick Santorum: Republican Candidate for Religious Bigot in Chief

“I’m always told that what I say is controversial. Why is it controversial? Because I speak from a tradition that has now fallen out of favor with the dominant media in this country. And so when I say things like marriage should be between one man and one woman, I’m called a bigot.” – Republican presidential candidate, Rick Santorum.

Yes, it certainly is what he’s always told, and that statement about marriage is among some of the more mild and moderate utterances from the intolerant mindset of Rick Santorum. This fellow represents the physical embodiment of the word “bigot.” He makes Archie Bunker look like a paragon of personal liberty, reason, acceptance and social tolerance.

Last March, Rick Santorum insisted that America should go to war over “moral” values: “America is about an idea, and it has to be about shared value, or what is it? What is it? And that's why these moral issues, that everyone says oh, maybe we should step to the side and have a truce on, you can't. It is who we are. It is the purpose of our country. And I have been out fighting the wars on these moral issues.”

Add my name to the list of those congratulating Mr. Santorum today for his smashing success: almost beating Mitt Romney flat out in the Iowa caucuses; a virtual victory which has left me dazed and amazed by the inept political judgment of the people of Iowa.

I shouldn’t be. The result is merely an affirmation of the fact that, if California is the land of fruits and nuts, Iowa is the land of scolds and religious bigots.

“You can say I’m a hater. But I would argue I’m a lover. I’m a lover of traditional families and of the right of children to have a mother and father… I would argue that the future of America hangs in the balance, because the future of the family hangs in the balance. Isn’t that the ultimate homeland security, standing up and defending marriage?” he asks. “Is anyone saying same-sex couples can’t love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?”

Rick Santorum has voted “yes” on a proposed federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In fact, he wouldn’t offer any legal protections at all to gay relationships and has pledged to annul all same-sex marriages if elected president.

During his 99-county tour of Iowa, he frequently compared same-sex relationships to inanimate objects like trees, basketballs, beer, and paper towels; and even tried to blame the economic crisis on gay people.

He believes that religious people have a constitutional right to discriminate against gays: “We have a right in the Constitution of religious liberty but now the courts have created a super-right that’s above a right that’s actually in the Constitution, and that’s of sexual liberty. And I think that’s a wrong, that’s a destructive element.” Santorum declared.

“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.” “Marriage is not about affirming somebody’s love for somebody else. It’s about uniting together to be open to children, to further civilization in our society.” “[Gay marriage] threatens my marriage. It threatens all marriages. It threatens the traditional values of this country.”

You see, Rick Santorum has it in his head an obsession that the United States of America should be likened to a huge ant colony and he’s vying for the job of Queen ant. The only purpose of love and marriage as far as he is concerned is to produce children for the society. The future of our nation hangs in the balance on the issue of (gasp!) gay marriage.

Santorum is positively disgusted by anyone who might tolerate gays in society. “I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts,” he once said. “Gay people should stop being gay.” “This is common sense. This is nature, and what we’re trying to do is defy nature because a certain group of people want to be affirmed by society.”

“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,” Santorum told The New York Times Magazine in May 2005.

Huh? Couldn’t the exact same conclusion follow from the right to have consensual straight sex within your own home?

“Does that [gay consensual sex] 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 [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.”

There you have it! Santorum’s religious bigotry is not just limited to homophobia, no; he actually believes that the fundamental constitutional right to liberty in America does not include a right to privacy – the basic human right to be left alone. "[The] right to privacy…doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution," according to Rick Santorum.

Santorum has pledged to repeal all federal funding for contraception and allow the states to outlaw birth control:

“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.” “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” [Sex] is supposed to be within marriage. It’s supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal… but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen… This is special and it needs to be seen as special.”

 “I don’t think it [contraception] works,” he opines. “I think it’s harmful to women, I think it’s harmful to our society to have a society that says that sex outside of marriage is something that should be encouraged or tolerated, particularly among the young. I think it has, as we’ve seen, very harmful long-term consequences for society. So birth control to me enables that and I don’t think it’s a healthy thing for our country.”

Asked once if he would allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives, Rick Santorum, employing his ‘states rights’ argument, replied: “the state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statues they have.”

Not surprisingly, Mr. Santorum also spews an absolutist anti-liberty position on the issue of abortion: “Life begins at conception, no exceptions for incest, rape, or the life of the mother, and doctors performing abortions should be criminally charged.”

Speaking out on Christian television early last year he said he was surprised that President Obama didn’t know when life began — given his skin color. “I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people,” he explained.

“Many women have told me, and surveys have shown, that they find it easier, more ‘professionally’ gratifying, and certainly more socially affirming, to work outside the home than to give up their careers to take care of their children. Think about that for a moment… Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism, one of the core philosophies of the village elders.” Rick Santorum; It Takes a Family, Pg. 95, July 2005.

This guy actually stated recently that the fundamental rights to “Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness,” as set forth in the Declaration of Independence by America’s founding fathers, does not include any individual’s right to pursue his or her own wants and desires.

In short, we don’t enjoy the right in America to pursue our own version of life, liberty and happiness according to Rick Santorum.  

Rick Santorum, Heritage Foundation Lecture #804: “My colleague Senator John Ensign of Nevada told me a story that epitomizes the selfishness of our culture: ‘When I was a teenager, I had a sticker in my car with a picture of a bear scratching himself on the tree, and under it was the saying, “If it feels good, do it!”’ “That was the motto of the '60s and the '70s, and certainly it is the motto today. The image of the bear scratching himself highlights a view of human beings as animals, and that people should do what pleases them at the moment without a thought to the broader long-term consequences of their actions.”

“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,” says Rick Santorum.

Rick Santorum fervently believes that the state has an absolute right to prevent you from scratching your own itch. All it has to do is pass a law, says Rick.

“The elementary error of relativism becomes clear when we look at multiculturalism. Sometime in the 1980s, universities began to champion the importance of “diversity” as a central educational value… The goal of diversity is wrong.” Rick Santorum: It Takes a Family, Pg. 406, July 2005.

Everyone should be the same, think the same, and act the same in America, according to Rick Santorum. Cultural diversity is wrong.

Rick Santorum on the efficacy of government imposed torture: “[John McCain] doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative. And that’s when we got this information.”

Rick Santorum on the problem of nuclear proliferation: “The U.S. should assassinate certain nuclear scientists from countries like Russia, North Korea and Iran.”

Rick Santorum on the War on Terror: “The war against Islamic fascism will be won or lost in America.” “We have a great game plan [in Iraq], and Rumsfeld does fine job.” “War in Iraq is one front in war on Islamic fascism.” “Iran is at the heart of the Iraq war.” “The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical.”  

Rick Santorum on big government: “Candidly, I believe most corporations actually don't mind big government.”

Rick Santorum on the Democratic Party: “The political base of the Democratic Party is single mothers running households that ‘look to the government for help.’” “The American Left hates Christendom. They hate Western civilization.”

Rick Santorum on President Obama: “Watching President Obama apologize last week for America's arrogance - before a French audience that owes its freedom to the sacrifices of Americans - helped convince me that he has a deep-seated antipathy toward American values and traditions.”

Rick Santorum on poverty in America: “Poor children should have to suffer hunger and other ills to prevent them from developing the sense of entitlement that comes from relying on government social programs... suffering, if you’re a Christian, suffering is part of life… Is that what Jesus meant by suffer the little children’”? 

Rick Santorum, as a U.S. Senator, voted YES on recommending a Constitutional ban on flag desecration; YES on loosening restrictions on cell phone wiretapping; YES on increasing penalties for drug offenses; YES on reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act; and YES on extending the PATRIOT Act's wiretap provisions.

Rick Santorum voted NO on preserving habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees; and NO on requiring CIA reports on detainees & interrogation methods.

Calling Rick Santorum an ultra-right-wing religious extremist is putting it mildly.  Next to him, statist tyrants like Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich seem like  timid moderates. That being the case, I don’t envision Santorum coming close to capturing the Republican Party nomination, much less the presidency, but stranger things have happened in the course of history.

In this regard, Mitt Romney is surely the lucky beneficiary as his chances to win the nomination are enhanced. The fact, however, that the Republican Party in Iowa has given this man Santorum political credibility within the GOP ranks, I think, bodes ill for Republican chances in the November general election against Barack Obama.

The average American now is going to view the Republican’s as a bunch of religious extremists as Rick Santorum is allowed equal status with Romney in the debates and at the convention leading up to the eventual nomination.

They’re likely to view the whole process from here on out as the:

Republican Candidate’s for Religious Bigot in Chief.