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SANCTUM SANTORUM?
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BY PETER KURTH (published 04.30.2003)
Santorum
and Lott -- pigs of a feather
How thoughtful of Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania
and chair of the Senate Republican Conference, to take my mind off Iraq,
Iran, Syria, SARS, North Korea, Donald Rumsfeld, Laci Peterson and that
freak in the White House by attacking “homosexuality.” It’s been a long time since
I’ve written a screed in defense of gay sex, an issue of such burning
importance to the fate of the nation that it’s even eclipsed the
Dixie Chicks and Charlton Heston’s farewell speech to the National
Rifle Association.
For those who care, Mr. Heston, stricken with Alzheimer’s, won
a standing ovation at the NRA’s annual convention on Sunday,
“shuffling onto the stage before a crowd of 4,000,” according
to wire reports, and “strong enough to raise an 1866 Winchester rifle
over his head” while gasping his trademark line, “From my cold,
dead hands.” Which, right now,
to speak very frankly, I wish were wrapped around Santorum’s neck.
Oh, yes, I know -- Santorum has “no problem with
homosexuality,” as he told the Associated Press in the interview that
caused all the fuss: “I have a
problem with homosexual acts. As I
would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of
traditional heterosexual relationships.”
Those acts might include golfing, cheating, lying, stealing, bombing Iraq and leaving the toilet seat up, but
let’s not pin a straight man down.
“I think this is a legitimate public policy discussion,”
Santorum remarks. “These are
not, you know, ridiculous, you know, comments.”
No. These are, you know,
appalling, you know, disgusting and despicable comments. Santorum was referring to a case
currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, in which two men from Texas, God help them, have appealed their
arrest on “sodomy” charges.
Santorum describes the abuse of children by priests as “a
basic homosexual relationship,” and while he acknowledges that
homosexuality, in itself, is “not, you know, man on child, man on
dog, or whatever the case may be," he sees no need to retract his
words. “And if the Supreme
Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your
home,” Santorum adds, “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."
Well! That’s a lot to
swallow, forgiving the expression. I
doubt that “swallowing” sits high on Santorum’s list of
“traditional heterosexual” acts, though I’m sure if my
cold, dead hands were to lift the sheets when he and Mrs. S. get together
for the Deed, he’d cry bloody murder at the intrusion. Democrats have called for
Santorum’s resignation from his Senate leadership post, and even the
Human Rights Campaign, a generally brown-nosing gay rights organization
made up almost exclusively of the moneyed, mortgaged, cotton-sweater crowd,
has said that his stance is "stunning in its insensitivity -- putting
homosexuality on the same moral plane as incest is repulsive."
Actually, incest is the only item on Santorum’s list that can be compared to “homosexual
acts,” even if the comparison is odious. Bigamy, polygamy and adultery are terms
all defined by their relation to legal or, if you prefer, holy matrimony,
while Santorum must know a great deal more about “man on dog”
than I do. Take away the marriage
vow, in any case, and these entities change their names. “Bigamy” becomes a second
marriage, “polygamy” a third, fourth, fifth or sixth, and
“adultery” -- let’s face it -- is just “an
affair.” Outside the law, none
of them has anything to do with sexual preference, positions, partners or
parts.
Incest, on the other hand, while it might be illegal, is a social
taboo, powerfully and permanently proscribed by almost every society and so
fraught with psychic, genetic and emotional baggage as to pop the diamond
right out of your ring. It, too, is
widely practiced, despite its prohibition, and no matter how many times its
perpetrators tie the knot. The same
is true of “dick on dick,” if I can lapse into vulgarity for
the sake of a point. This is why
Santorum can claim “no problem” with homosexuality but only
with the "you know" part of it -- the “act.” This is how we can tell that he’s
thought about it a lot. It would simply
blow his puny mind, in a way that bigamy, polygamy and adultery never
could.
In the wake of l’affaire Santorum, there’s a been a lot
of pundit blather comparing his “incendiary” comments to those
of another revolting bigot, former Senate majority leader Trent Lott, whose
remarks on racial segregation cost him his post at the start of the
year. Will Santorum, like Lott,
resign, step down, give in? Who
cares? No mention is made of
Lott’s previous piggery, in June 1998, when he compared homosexuality
to alcoholism, “sex addiction” and
“kleptomania.”
Four months later, lest we forget, the body of Matthew Shepard was
found beaten, bludgeoned and tied to a post, left to die by a couple of
punks who feared he might unman them with a glance, and who, if the God
Santorum says he believes in is really on the job, will be raped in
perpetuity in the jail where they belong.
If there’s a hero in this scenario, it’s our own Howard
Dean, who, three years ago, signed Vermont’s civil union law like a nervous
nellie, virtually in the dark, but who seems to have found his courage on
the national stage and says he “can’t wait to engage
Republicans on that issue.” I
hope he means it. Because -- oh,
irony! -- while the Bush administration and other Republican swine keep insisting
that there will be no “theocratic, fundamentalist” government
in the new, remodeled Iraq, we’re well on our way to getting one
here.
Don’t ask Santorum to “apologize,” folks. Vote Democratic and throw the bums out.
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