Howard Dean: Santorum Should Resign over Anti-gay Comments
by: Jason P Taverner
Republicons.org
4/23/2003
Democratic Presidential hopeful, Howard Dean, Wednesday suggested that US Senator Rick Santorum should be asked to resign over comments he made that equated homosexual relations with bigamy and incest.
“Santorum has refused to apologize for his repugnant remarks, calling his comments ‘a legitimate public policy discussion.’ Gay-bashing is not a legitimate public policy discussion; it is immoral. Rick Santorum's failure to recognize that attacking people because of who they are is morally wrong makes him unfit for a leadership position in the United States Senate. Today I call on Rick Santorum to resign from his post as Republican Conference Chairman,” said Dean.
Dean also chastised the Bush administration for failing to comment on the issue. “As additional reports have come to light, revealing a disturbing history of inflammatory, anti-gay rhetoric by Senator Santorum, the deafening silence of President Bush and his party has become inexcusable,”
Santorum has tried to defend his comments. “My comments should not be misconstrued in any way as a statement on individual lifestyles,” Santorum said in a brief news release issued by his office.
However, in light of the sweeping nature of his original statement and his failure to recant, the problem doesn’t appear to be one of being “misconstrued”.
“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,” Santorum was quoted as saying. “You have the right to anything.”
In an interview with Fox state run television, Santorum attempted to allay concerns. “I didn't say anything that needs to be apologized for," Santorum said. "I talk a lot about this issue of activism in the courts. I talk about the issue of privacy and the extension of the right of privacy to a variety of different areas that I think would be injurious to our country."
Dean sees the issue of equal rights for all people differently. “In a nation dedicated to equality under the law, everyone must be equal under the law. By refusing to stand up for gay Americans under attack by members of his own party's leadership, this President sends a message that intolerance and bigotry is acceptable. That is not acceptable,” he said.
Wire service accounts used in this report |
