Rick Santorum

Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Republican conference in the Senate, told an interviewer this week: "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." Gay rights groups are angry. Santorum's spokesperson started the weaselword asscovering process by insisting that those comments should be taken "only in the context related specifically to the right to privacy in the Supreme Court case" and that Santorum "has no problem with gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender individuals." I can't wait for the heartful interview on Gay Entertainment Television.

Santorum refuses to apologize. In the original interview, he also said, "I have no problem with homosexuality; I have a problem with homosexual acts." Huh? (Notice the ironic "sponsored links" sidebar.)

Here's a lengthy, unedited excerpt from the interview that started the controversy. As Andrew Sullivan pointed out, most articles inserted "(gay)" into a key quote. Santorum actually said, "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." There's lots more very scary stuff in the interview. Santorum later groups homosexuality with pedophilia and bestiality, to which the interviewer responds:

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.

Lewis Whittington offers sardonic commentary at the Advocate. "I love it when my sexuality is likened to sins by politicians. It makes me feel alive, fearless, and oh so, so gay. I mean gay, fabulously, in the new and the old sense of the word. Who can forget Trent Lott’s aria about homosexuality being akin to alcoholism? I thought, Sousy, you’re really going to burn in Republican hell if they stay in power. Thank God!"

Andrew Sullivan has reprinted his excellent Salon premium commentary at his own website for free. And he discusses the Santorum affair further in his weblog today (no permalinks, you may have to scroll down).

UPDATE: More Santorum commentary from Susannah Breslin (guestblogging at the Male Storm), Joe Conason (Salon, probably premium) and Eugene Volokh (scroll up for several followups).

Ronald Bailey talks about the Santorum affair at Reason. Many supposedly liberatarian pundits have bent over backwards to dismiss or rationalize Santorum's scary authoritarian views, but Bailey upholds the faith.

Most news stories have overlooked the more chilling fact that Santorum's views on homosexuality came up in the broader context of the right to privacy. Santorum thinks that privacy is a bad idea.

"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," said Santorum according to the transcript of his AP interview.

Santorum is undoubtedly right—if people feel freer of the constraints imposed by the prying eyes of their neighbors, they will explore different ways of expressing themselves and enjoying life. This traditionally was why many people fled farms and small towns for the anonymity of the big cities. As the German aphorism says, "City air makes men free." Privacy allows people to engage in all kinds of activities of which others might disapprove, ranging from religious worship, membership in dissident groups, recreational drug use, reading pornography, and yes, consensual sex acts between adults. The rising demand by Americans for an expanding sphere of privacy is the buzz saw into which Santorum stumbled.

Still more Santorum humor from Mark Morford.

More Santorum satire: go read this verbatim transcript of a call to Senator's office.

Humorous Santorum commentary from Richard Cohen.

Dan Savage has an op-ed piece about the Santorum affair in the New York Times. "But gays and lesbians are more than just sons and daughters. We're moms and dads, too. My boyfriend and I adopted a son five years ago, and we plan to adopt again. As more same-sex couples start families, it's going to be harder for Republicans like Mr. Santorum to say we are somehow a threat to the American family."

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