At first, perhaps mistaking himself for an actual educator, Santorum lectured the students. He kept challenging them to prove why marriage needed to be, well, equal. “Don’t you have to make the positive argument why the law should be changed?” he asked. When one woman suggested that same-sex couples have the same rights to happiness as anyone else, Santorum decided to move from the pompous to the offensive. “If you’re not happy unless you’re married to five other people, is that okay?” he asked. The women had the temerity to call Santorum on his bullshit, pointing out, as any good professor would to a wayward pupil, that the bigamy issue is “irrelevant.”
Then she continued, “But when two men want to marry … ”
Mr. Santorum interrupted, “What about three men?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” the woman shot back.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Meanwhile, the audience booed Santorum and shouted out their own responses to the knuckle-dragging questions he posed. This allowed Santorum, who has cornered the market on sanctimonious, to chastise the crowd for expressing their displeasure at such naked homophobia. “I’m going to give people one more chance and then we are going to move on,” he said at one point. Eventually, the discussion ended, but when Santorum left the students, they roundly booed him.
The episode underscored two problems, one for Santorum and one for Republicans in general. Santorum’s comments are well in line with everything he’s always said about gay marriage, but since his almost first-place finish in Iowa, the mainstream media will be paying attention to everything he says (until he implodes like all the other non-Romneys did). That means that nasty little episodes like this one that would never have gotten any press will be receiving wide play and help paint Santorum as a pompous and hate-filled jerk. (Who says the mainstream media doesn’t get things right occasionally?)
The bigger problem is for the GOP. Until they rid themselves of rabid homophobes like Santorum, Republicans have little chance of capturing a younger demographic. The bipartisan Freedom to Marry study from last summer found that 68% of 18 to 29 year-olds support gay marriage. Basically, the only group that supports Santorum’s position are those 65 and older, and even a third of that group favor marriage equality. As the report said, “As generational change occurs, we expect that the numbers will continue to shift in support.”
The only Republican candidate who draws young voters is Ron Paul, largely because his libertarian philosophy allows some people to delude themselves into believe he’s actually liberal on social issues. While senior citizens may be more likely to vote than young people, you can’t stop the clock from ticking. At some point soon the Republicans have to face up to the fact that the voting population won’t stand from Santorum-like rhetoric, at least not if they want to be a majority party. But then, as Santorum’s career illustrates, perhaps the party will gladly hold onto its reprehensible principles even as it marches off a cliff.
Ro
I know it’s been said, but he really is insane
Olive Austin
I guess Senator Santorum (R-Anus) has never read the Constitution, otherwise he would have noticed this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause
Kylew
It’s so heartening to see young people taking such a good moral stand, but the problem is, this is the educated, middle class demographic, and they’re probably not the ones out queerbashing. I suppose change will spread out from this group, but it would be great to see the working classes and low income people showing such progressive thinking too.
I don’t think it’s classist or stateist to suggest that if he had held the same event in a Texas football stadium, the responses woould have been very different.
Kurt
“When one woman suggested that same-sex couples have the same rights to happiness as anyone else”
Because without marriage there is no happiness? I do have to laugh about how the cultural Left has shifted from marriage is not essential to happiness between two people, to how it IS essential for happiness.
Michael in Toronto
Give him enough rope…
Mike UK
where do the Republicans get these fuckwits to represent them!
kawneekwa
I still wanto no why he give jerry sandusky da congresional medal. Can someone answer me dat?
the crustybastard
@Kurt:
Because marriage is a common element of the individual’s pursuit of happiness, which is an inalienable right.
Stop being dense and pretending the problem lies with liberals. It doesn’t.
christopher di spirito
Maybe Mrs. Santorum will deliver another dead baby so Little Ricky can drag it around on the campaign trail.
Paul Specific
@christopher di spirito: ROFLMAO
B
No. 7 · kawneekwa wrote, “I still wanto no why he give jerry sandusky da congresional medal. Can someone answer me dat?”
Sure – Sandusky got an award (a minor one) in 2002, nearly a decade before the scandal appeared on the evening news. While a report was passed around a university, that
report never made it to the police. If they local police didn’t know, why should
Santorum or any other member of congress or the senate know?
There’s plenty of reason to criticize Santorum. We don’t have to make up dubious claims about him to do that.
TMikel
I can only hope that the increased attention Mr. Frothy Mix gets will cause his campaign to implode and lay to rest once and forever any political ambitions he has. The man is not only sanctimonious, he is hypcritical and a liar. When will these fools realize that anything and everything they do and say is recored for all time? Ergo, they cannot say they didn’t say what they did – we have proof. Santorum seems unable to grasp this concept – or he is so egotistical that he things he can say and do what he wants and we will fall on our knees before him – and NOT for fellatio either!
B
A comment on QUEERTY’s phrase, “rabid homophobes like Santorum”:
Rick Santorum is not a rabid homophobe. The adjective “rabid” should be reserved for people who tend to use a 6-letter “F” word, often modified by the present participle of a 4-letter “F” word, while screaming at the top of their lungs. Or people who threaten physical violence and maybe go beyond threats.
Santorum is not a rabid homophobe. He may be a non-rabid homophobe or just a religious nut who for some strange reason trusts opinions on sexuality and marriage espoused by people who are supposed to be completely celibate and who are not supposed to get married. He can certainly be criticized for being a throwback to what, in U.S. politics, would correspond to the Pleistocene. Even in the Pleistocene, Santorum would be an anachronism. He belongs in the Jurassic period – I’d locate him geographically on a continent named Gondwana rather than Laurasia, assuming we could put him in his natural period.
Esculapio Mitiríades Torquemada de la Cueva
@B: Maybe he doesn’t use the word you allude to. Maybe he says “goshdarn” when he means to say “goddamn,” and “homosexuals” when he means to say “fucking faggots.” But as any good ol’ preacher worth his salt will tell you, at the end of the day, it’s the word that’s in your heart that matters. And when it comes to us, there’s only one word in Santorum’s heart. And that word is “faggot.”
Brian
I recommend watching the video of the event. He asks stupid questions to the audience and when they don’t give him the answer he wants, he cuts them off and says “no, stop, this is not participatory.” What an idiot.
bob kunst
Dear Media:
It didn’t take long for Santorum to get into his gay bashing in New Hampshire.
Littly Ricky say that gays in the military and getting married isn’t a right.
Little Ricky needs to re-read the U.S. Constitution, because gays, bisexuals and heterosexuals gave life and limb since the beginning of this nation, so that this emotionally and sexually insecure jerk could run for President with the rest of the losers.
The issue isn’t ‘gay marriage’,but ‘taxation with representation’ and ‘equality’ under the law which is why a number of states have adopted this and domestic partnerships, as well as a number of countries. Inevitably so will the Supreme Ct.
Mr. Moralist should be concerned more about the lack of marriages with heterosexuals and 1/2 of them getting divorced, but this hypocrite, when he gets to Florida, the homeland of Gay Rights, where we threw out Anita Bryant and Jerry Falwell out of this state, should finally set the tone for this boob’s campaign.
Here we have Obama and his anti-Israel, pro-Jihadist politics that is appeasing Iran and the Muslim militants, who care less about gay marriage, when we are all ‘infidels’ they want dead and Santorum is too stupid to focus on real issues and real threats while his desire is to keep America divided and to be made the symbol of homophobia and fool he is at every turn. American and Israeli security is just a side show for his reality of massive stupidity.
I led the opposition to Anita Bryant and Jerry Falwell. I also confronted Santorum in S. Carolina last year,at a debate in Greenville about his anti-gay politics and he flew off the handle. Talk about a weeny, unable to deal with his own sexuality while attacking others.
Below is a statement from Sen. Simpson on Santorum said on the Chris Mathews Show on April 12, 2011.
I urge the media to stop playing games with the security of America and Israel and not expose fully the insecurity of Santorum and gang. Too bad Iowa played their game with Santorum. On the other hand Iowa gave us Obama. Oy!
Yours in Shalom,
Bob Kunst
Pres., Shalom International
305-864-5110
http://www.defendjerusalem.net
———————-
B
No. 13 · Esculapio Mitiríades Torquemada de la Cueva wrote, “@B: Maybe he doesn’t use the word you allude to. Maybe he says “goshdarn” when he means to say “goddamn,” and “homosexuals” when he means to say “fucking faggots.” But as any good ol’ preacher worth his salt will tell you, at the end of the day, it’s the word that’s in your heart that matters.”
Sigh. The issue was word usage.
To help you get the general idea, I suggest you read http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2000-09-08/news/0009080145_1_dick-cheney-adam-clymer-expletive-deleted (a classic and extremely funny article by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in response to George W. Bush once calling a New York Times reporter “a major-league asshole.”) As Dowd wrote, ‘By midday Tuesday we had searched our hearts and come to grips with the delicate problem. Al Siegal, our estimable arbiter of language, sent a memo to the editors on the political desk: “Folks: If we have to refer to it again, let’s call Bush’s word a vulgarity, not an obscenity. It has nothing to do with sex. Nor is it profane, having nothing to do with religion or the deity.”‘
You really need to read this column. It was a far more effective put-down of Bush than any level of name-calling could possibly achieve. It’s a good model for QUEERTY to follow (if they can find writers up to the task – there aren’t that many Maureen Dowds out there).
B
No. 15 · bob kunst wrote, “Here we have Obama and his anti-Israel, pro-Jihadist politics that is appeasing Iran and the Muslim militants.”
Just out of curiosity, do you people keep up with current events? Read http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/01/03/bloomberg_articlesLX8QBY6K50YS.DTL and explain how Obama is “appeasing” Iran given Iran’s reaction to routine U.S. naval operations.
tjr101
@bob kunst: ” Here we have Obama with his anti- Isreal, pro- jihadists politics that is appeasing Iran and the Muslim militants.”
Please get your head out of your yarmulke and actually read and think for yourself!
Corey Brier
he’s ‘rational’ approach is simply to use the fallacious slippery slope argument in order to skirt around the actual question. this is actually very irrational in that it arrives at the conclusion “marriage can be anything” from the premise two men can get married, destroying any reasonable attempt at a middle ground. By the same logic a man marrying a women would imply also a polygamous relationship.
Dennis
@Michael in Toronto: and we might be lucky enough he morally hangs himself with it 🙂
Mike
Its ridiculous that Santorum wants US the people to prove to him. As a politician he’s a representative for us. We don’t have to justify our feelings or our vote, and that arrogant bullshit about “prove to me” does in fact prove to me that we can’t afford Santorum!