Rick Santorum I have the dubious honor of being from the state that Rick Santorum represents, but nothing that Santorum stands for is representative of my stand on the issues. Santorum is the poster child for the radical religious right and, like Istook and Musgrave, he took the fast track to national politics. Unlike Musgrave and Istook, Santorum didn't hold local elected office before entering national politics. His first foray into elected government resulted in his defeat of a seven-term incumbent Democrat for a seat in the US House of Representatives. After serving only two terms, he was elected to the US Senate, once again defeating an incumbent Democrat. When you think about how much of a proven advantage an incumbent has, especially when his/her party is in the White House and the economy is booming, Santorum's double victory over Democratic incumbents is almost miraculous. Now, a mere ten years later, Santorum is the third most powerful Republican in the Senate at the age of 46. Santorum's official website biography states that "most important of his [Santorum's] initiatives" is the Charitable, Aid, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Act. This is the official name of the faith-based initiatives program, wherein taxpayer dollars are used to pay for social service programs that are run by religious organizations. The way the bill is worded and the press releases about it make it seem like a wonderful and good thing. But there are several problems. In order to receive funding through this bill, an organization MUST be incorporated as a 501c3 and already have a plan in place. Second, some categories are under the control of specific religions and if the religion doesn't agree with your plan, you don't get the funding. Therefore, a church like MCC (Metropolitan Community Church) which acknowledges gay marriages and affirms gay relationships might not receive funding if requested under a category that was run by say the Southern Baptists. Third, the government cannot force these agencies that are taking government money to abide by EEOC hiring standards or require them to provide services for those who violate their faith. Therefore, they can discriminate against gays, for example, by both refusing to hire one or refusing to provide services to one. Fourth, they are permitted to proselytize while providing services. So let's say a gay youth calls a suicide prevention hotline run by a Mormon church. The Mormon volunteer/employee on the other end of the phone can, while this individual in in crisis, tell them that they're an abomination in the eyes of God. And for this, they would be immune from any prosecution should the gay youth then commit suicide (or attempt to.) There are other issues at stake too, not the least of which is the breach of the wall of separation between church and state. The lion's share of the money from faith-based initiative programs has so far gone to organizations that are already established and well-funded by their parent churches. The small churches in Anytown, USA don't have much of a chance of receiving any funding from this bill. Organizations like the 700 Club, on the other hand, have the lawyers and staff to not only know the law and how to apply but also realize just what funding is there and for what purposes— something the smaller churches have very little chance of finding out. Try something, if you will. Ask your minister or priest or rabbi what they know about how to get funding for a faith-based initiative. Unless you belong to one of the "mega-churches", my guess is that they won't know. Santorum is unabashedly anti-choice. (I refuse to call him pro-life because he supports the death penalty as attested to by his voting record. Of course, his anti-choice stance was called into question when he threw his support behind Senator Arlen Specter, the other Pennsylvania senator— who is pro-choice— over Pat Toomey, who was anti-choice.) In July 2002, the US Senate passed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act that stated that any human "infant" at "any stage of development" who was born alive was entitled to the full rights of a US citizen. While this sounds rather unnecessary and obvious, the "at any stage of development" makes this a back-door attempt to stop abortions according to many pro-choice groups. Under the new law, a woman who went into the emergency room and had a miscarriage, if the fetus showed ANY signs of movement/life, the hospital staff would have to make every reasonable effort to save its life, even if there was very little chance for the infant to survive. Consider this aspect of such a bill. If a woman HAD such a miscarriage, and the fetus was born "alive", it would be considered a live birth. In another 60 or 70 years, let's say the woman dies with a will that states that her estate be divided equally among her children and that if one predeceases her, their share of the estate goes to charity. Let's say the woman had two other children. Rather than dividing her estate up two ways, they would have to divide it up three ways and give one third to charity because legally, the miscarriage is considered a child who predeceased its mother. This law was rushed through the House Judiciary Committee and no one took enough time to determine how such a law would impact other laws. The Congressional Research Service, an agency that determines which laws are affected by changing legislation, reported that approximately 15,000 provisions of the U.S. Code and 57,000 provisions of the Code of Federal Regulations would have to be amended or discarded because of the passage of this law. No one yet knows the full impact of this bill. Santorum, despite his uncanny success in the Senate, has not won all of his battles. In 2001, he introduced what was known as the Santorum amendment to an education appropriations bill. The wording of the amendment was as follows: "It is the sense of the Senate that- (1) good science education should prepare students to distinguish the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious claims that are made in the name of science; and (2) where biological evolution is taught, the curriculum should help students to understand why this subject generates so much continuing controversy, and should prepare the students to be informed participants in public discussions regarding the subject." The part about "preparing the students to be informed participants in public discussion regarding the subject" was a back-door way of attempting to force public schools to teach a PC version of creationism called "intelligent design"— essentially saying that something as complex as the universe must have an intelligent designer just as a complex Swiss pocket watch must have a designer. The Santorum amendment actually passed in the Senate but the House version did not include the amendment. When the conference committee got together to hammer out the bills final form, reason and logic prevailed upon them and the Santorum amendment was not present in the final appropriations bill. But then again, one has to ask what that kind of amendment is doing in an appropriations bill anyway since it is setting policy, not disbursing funds. But, as seen in the article on Ernest Istook, burying laws/policy changes in large "must pass" bills is a favorite tactic of the radical religious right's pocketed politicians. But perhaps the thing that most stands out about Santorum and puts him squarely in the pocket of the radical religious right is his stance on homosexuality. Santorum has made so many unapologetically outrageous statements about homosexuality— which he ties to both moral relativism and the right to privacy (which he seems to believe doesn't exist)— that it's hard to decide which ones to highlight, but here are a few along with a rebuttal of sorts. "You have the problem [child sex abuse scandal] within the [Catholic] 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." [Source] Rebuttal: The first problem is an unsupported leap of logic from having the right to do what you want in your own home to that being a deviant behavior. Different does not mean wrong, bad, deviant, immoral, etc. The second problem is more of a problem of unsupported conclusions. Santorum's statement (paraphrased for brevity) is "If it's private and consensual, then you can do it. If you do it, society is not nurturing or healthy." Mathematically, that translates to if A=B, then B=C. This is not a sound mathematical statement. "The right to privacy lifestyle." [Source] Rebuttal: Not much to rebut except a definition of what a "right to privacy" lifestyle is. The fourth amendment of the Bill of Rights says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..." How is that not guaranteeing a right to privacy? Additionally, the ninth amendment says, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." This clearly states that simply even if a right is not enumerated, the people still retain it. The right to privacy is one of those rights. Is Mr. Santorum suggesting that the American way of life is a "right to privacy" lifestyle that is to blame for the Catholic church sex abuse scandal? "In this case, what we're talking about, basically, is priests who were having sexual relations with post-pubescent men....We're talking about a basic homosexual relationship." [Source] Rebuttal: No, actually, we're not. A basic homosexual relationship does not involve someone in a position of power and authority using that power and authority to garner sexual favors from a minor. "I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts." [Source] Rebuttal: That's kind of like saying I have no problem with flying, I have a problem with planes. So-called "homosexual acts" are simply one facet of homosexuality. And "homosexual acts" are simply sex acts between persons of the same gender— that doesn't mean that the people involved are gay. The simplest proof of this is to look at the male prison population and the rampant sexual abuse that goes on inside prison walls among inmates. The vast majority of these men might engage in opportunistic homosexual acts, but very few of them consider themselves gay. I penned an article called Redefining Orientation that goes into this issue in much greater detail. "We have laws in states, like the one [Lawrence v Texas] at the Supreme Court right now, that has sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose." [Source] Rebuttal: Yes, and that purpose was to single out gay men for discrimination since at the time that the couple was arrested, heterosexual sodomy in Texas (which legally includes oral sex as well as anal sex) was legal. As was bestiality. "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." [Source] Rebuttal: Read the above very carefully, because these are the actual words he used, although many news agencies changed the word "consensual" to "gay". So Mr. Santorum is not only including gays in this but ANYONE of ANY orientation. Second, incest is most often not consensual since it more often than not starts during childhood. If it carries on into adulthood, it is because the child has been programmed to think that it is okay and "normal". Third, adultery is not private: it involves what is usually an unsuspecting or unknowing third party who is kept in the dark. Fourth, another case of A=B therefore B=C. You can have consensual sex in the privacy of your home. When you have consensual sex in the privacy of your home, you are now entitled to anything. Rape is not consensual, child sexual abuse is not consensual. Bestiality is not consensual. Therefore, those would remain illegal. Bans on polygamy and bigamy are actually religious in nature and therefore unconstitutional since they establish Christian theology as the basis for civil law. "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 —" [Source][Note: The interviewer interrupted Mr. Santorum at this point, so there is nothing after "quality—"] Rebuttal: For the real history of marriage, you can read another article I wrote. Marriage's original intent, from its first inception only about 4350 years ago, was as a means of insuring that wealth remained in the control of the same family. When a woman married, she left her family and became the property of her husband. Any sons that were the result of their marriage became heirs to the family wealth. Any females were sold in marriage. In the US, in the 1940s, there were still states wherein it was illegal for married women to own property or to sign contracts! Only recently (as in the 19th century) was the notion that one marries for Love widely accepted. Contrary to Mr. Santorum's assertion, marriage has not always been monogamous. The Bible is full of stories about marriages to multiple partners. Solomon, whose wisdom surpassed everyone elses, had 700 wives and concubines. Monogamy is even a more recent development than marriage. In fact, monogamy didn't really take root in our culture until relatively recently. Men had concubines and the sons of those concubines had the same right to inherit their father's holdings as sons from his marriage. The Christian church itself didn't really involve itself in marriage until the 1200's. As to the definition of marriage, in the US, that definition has changed countless times. At one point, it was only between whites: blacks were not even allowed to marry for to allow them to do so would be to acknowledge their humanity. (Which is exactly what it would do to gays, but I digress.) Then marriage included the right for blacks to marry, but they had to marry someone who was not white. It wasn't until 1968 that blacks had full marriage rights and were able to marry who they loved— unless they were gay, of course. So the definition of marriage has NOT been as steadfast and unchanging as Mr. Santorum would have us believe. And finally, the infamous comparison of homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality. Neither are consensual acts— a homosexual relationship is between consenting adults. Mr. Santorum's comments indicate a willful ignorance of facts and a blind adherence to the teachings of radical religious fundamentalists. Santorum's comments drew immediate fire from groups fighting for equal rights for gays and from Democrats, but noticeably absent was any reprimand or comments— positive or negative— from Republican leadership or the White House. Two moderate republicans did publicly chastise Santorum's remarks as "unfortunate". But praise for Santorum's comments and for his "honor" came from the radical religious right almost instantly. In fact, the Family Research Council chastised Republican leadership for not being more vocal in their support for Santorum's remarks. This past summer (2004) Santorum continued his assault on gays by supporting the Federal Marriage Amendment that would have defined marriage as between one man and one woman. With the ongoing scandal involving Jack Abramoff, some members of Congress are pushing for a review of policies with respect to gifts from lobbyists to members of Congress. Senate Republicans have appointed Rick Santorum to head the committee that will draft new legislation that place stricter limits on what can and what cannot be accepted. But guess who has gotten the most money from lobbyists in the 2006 election cycle. You got it: Rick Santorum. Talk about letting the fox guard the hen-house. Just before the Federal Marriage Amendment was reintroduced into the Senate for a vote in June, 2006, Santorum made an appearance on the talk show of another mouthpiece, Janet Parshall. During the discussion, Santorum, in reference to the debate about gay marriage, said: "And it's an opportunity for us to get beyond, you know, 'We should treat everybody nicely.' I'm for treating everybody nicely, but that doesn't mean that we need to change the law to recognize a form of marriage that is harmful to our country." Say what? He wants to get "beyond" the belief that we should treat everybody nicely, then turns around in the next sentence and says he believes we should treat everybody nicely. First, we're not changing the law to "recognize a form of marriage that is harmful to our country." We're changing the law to meet the requirements of the US Constitution that all citizens have equal protection under the law. And second, there is absolutely no proof that gay marriage is harmful to our country because we've never had gay marriage to study the effect on our country! The state of Massachusetts is no worse off now than it was before it legalized gay marriage and that is the closest we can get. What Santorum and all opponents of gay marriage seem to not understand is that with or without government approval, gays are going to marry. They're going to marry in the churches that support and welcome them. And they're going to call it a marriage if they choose. They're also going to have families. Gays have open to them the same options that infertile straight couples have with respect to having children. The only thing laws defining marriage do is to insure that those children (as well as their parents) will not have the same legal protections that the children of straight marriages have. Why, when the actions of these elected officials goes so against the grain of the American ideals, do so many people still vote for them? For an answer to that, please read my thoughts on the whole issue. Note: You can now sign up to have notifications sent to you when changes are made to this page. Just click on the "Monitor Changes" button below and it will open a new window where you can enter your email address. You will then be notified whenever changes are made to this page. Please note that it will monitor this page only, not the entire "Exposed!" website. it's private by ChangeDetection Click on any of the links below to read more articles about Rick Santorum. Rick Santorum on the Issues Synopsis: See where Rick Santorum stands on the issues by seeing how he voted in the past. Santorum Supports Partial Birth Abortion Ban Synopsis: An article about a speech Santorum gave at Georgetown University in support of the partial birth abortion ban that had been passed just months before. Santorum's Shame Synopsis: An article by a conservative economist highlighting the hypocrisy of Santorum's support of incumbent Arlen Specter over Specter's opponent, the much more fiscally conservative Pat Toomey. Santorum's No-Sex Platform Synopsis: An analysis of Rick Santorum's attack on privacy in the home— it's not gay sex he thinks should not be protected, it's all sex. My Rebuttal of Senator Santorum Synopsis: Senator Santorum wrote an op-ed piece for USA today in July 2003. In this article, I give my rebuttal and demonstrate the spin and distortions of the facts by the RRR. A Life=A Bumper Sticker Synopsis: This is a video clip of Senator Santorum praising those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country by going to Iraq and says Americans here can do their part by putting one of his bumper stickers on their cars. Next Page: Antonin Scalia Previous Page: Ernest Istook Contact Us Submit a site you want Exposed! Exposed! Home Page All text © 2004-13 Shelly Strauss except where quotes with references are provided. All graphics © 2004-13 Rainbow's End Press Do not copy without written permission. Please tell your friends about this site and feel free to link to us.