Sadly it is Time to Pay Attention to Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum

With a frighteningly high place finish in the Iowa caucus last week, all of the sudden Rick Santorum is warranting actual, serious attention. Up until Iowa, Santorum was one of the only Republican candidates who had not had his 15 minutes of not-Romney front-running fame. Indeed, Santorum has been such a joke throughout the race that, until Iowa, Santorum’s own website came up second on google to a website hilariously (and anally) defining his last name.

Santorum’s outlandish Iowa-fueled surge came to a 9.4% trickle in New Hampshire, where he took fifth place, with only the other anti-gay Rick behind him. Although in New Hampshire he seemed to be back where he should be in the contest, South Carolina’s primary is next up, where he has spent $1.5 million in ads and is hoping for a high finish in the socially conservative state. In deep-seated fear that Santorum may continue to be a Romney challenger throughout the rest of the primary season, I thought it wise to share with the qPDX readers exactly what Santorum thinks of you, your love, and your queer-ass sex (or queer ass sex. Or both, really.)

Santorum, due to being outspoken about his anti-gay rights stance as well as the “inartful way that he described it,” as John McCain so lightly put it, has been asked to speak to the topic ad nauseam. No, seriously, listening to him speak really can make you physically ill. Before running for the Presidential bid, while a Pennsylvania Senator in 2003, Santorum was asked to comment on the then-pending Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court case in an interview to the Associated Press. He explained that,

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.

That’s right folks, marriage is not gay just as it is not man on dog. Rather inartful, no? Santorum recently defended his controversial comment saying,

I said, if the supreme court says you have the right to consensual sexual activity, then you have the right to incest, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to all of these other sexual variations [read: man on dog]. And so the gay community said ‘he’s comparing gay sex to incest and polygamy, how dare he do this.’ And they have gone out on an, I would argue, jihad against Rick Santorum since then.

You know if Santorum’s use of the third person in this statement is the least infuriating part, he really is a jackass.

Now, before we all get riled up like the bunch of queer jihadists that Santorum thinks we are, he has made it clear that he is comparing gay sex to bestiality with the utmost respect. He believes that being able to make bigoted statements like this, “is the beautiful thing about this country…that is, people of all different backgrounds—diversity, opinions, faith—can come into the public square and can be heard and can be heard in a way that’s respectful of everybody else.”

In an attempt to make his anti-gay political stance less personally hurtful and disrespectful, he has repeatedly noted throughout the campaign that he has gay friends and that his political beliefs do not mean he hates or discriminates against them. Only that he does not support their desire to “change the law.” He does not just mean marriage laws, however, he also means the laws that already allow gay parents to adopt in many states. This is where his “don’t hate the gay, hate the person trying to change the law” argument does not hold up. He would like to be the one changing the law in the states where gays and lesbians may currently adopt. Adoption laws are usually decided on the state level, but if Santorum is elected, he is not going to let the states have their hands on any gay rights issues. In regards to lesbian adoption, Santorum stated to a New Hampshire audience that, “Even fathers in jail who had abandoned their kids…were still better than no father at all to have in their children’s lives.”

I warned you earlier about the illness that can occur while hearing Santorum speak about gay rights, and now, clenching your belly as you read this, you know why. Here’s hoping that his showing in New Hampshire has slowed his momentum to a halt. Or at least that his time in the spotlight will do to him what it did to Bachmann, Perry, Cain, and Gingrich before him, and highlight what a truly absurd and distressing President he would make.