It's a crazy world out there. With war, a bad economy and a political system all topsy-turvy, The Onion reads like The New York Times and The New York Times reads like The Onion. For instance, the government really doesn't take any pains to disguise their favoritism to Halliburton. Another piece of news that really has to strike one as absurd is that people are actually surprised over recent comments by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.
Without a doubt, Pennsylvania is a politically eclectic state. Their recently elected Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, had a cameo as himself in Philadelphia, discussing gay rights as the city's then-mayor. On the other hand, Santorum, also chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, commented on a gay rights case currently before the Supreme Court by comparing homosexuality to polygamy, incest, adultery and all sorts of licentiousness. In the past he has led the fight to amend the U.S. Constitution to forbid any future recognition of gay marriage, something not likely to be a real legal issue for at least the next five blue moons. The fact that the same electorate gives us both Rendell and Santorum shows that not only are the swing voters a powerful group, they are also completely insane.
At any rate, the reaction to Santorum's vitriol from his political opponents is in some ways curious. Some have called for him too resign his leadership post, while others have called for Republican leadership to repudiate his remarks. Openly gay Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., had a better take on it.
\The surprise is that he's being honest about it, not that he believes this. This kind of gay-bashing is perfectly acceptable in the Republican Party,"" Frank said. Frank's take on it is much more on the ball; it's not a surprise that Santorum holds such views. Still, Frank isn't quite on the mark. It's no surprise that Santorum voices these beliefs either, as his past political activity and horrendous voting record on gay rights never left any doubt of where he stood.
This is in some ways different from the Trent Lott episode. In the late 1960s, an influential political strategist named Kevin Phillips wrote ""The Emerging Republican Majority."" His strategy called for exploiting racial distrust in order to get Republicans into a national majority, and above all, disavowing any use of this strategy lest the people recoil in guilt over the whole thing. Lott was always good at part one, but his downfall came when they admitted what they were doing. Thus we have what's actually going on here that the key to campaigning is to say what you mean without actually saying it. The best thing that can be said for Santorum is that what you see is what you get, even if what you're getting is a right-wing scumbag with one of the most punchable faces in Washington.
The calls for Santorum's resignation, and previously for Lott's, disregards a necessity of democracy. A party needs to stick to its guns. From Jesse Helms to Anita Bryant to Santorum, there's a long anti-gay tradition on the Republican side. President Bush vetoed a hate crimes law while governor of Texas specifically because gays were among the protected groups. The Republican platform talks about upholding the traditional family. The last thing that should be asked of them is to shame a leader out of his position simply because he vocally spelled out his party's dominant position. He obviously represents a prominent viewpoint in the populous or else he wouldn't have been sent to the Senate and made a leader. His position is one I find abhorrent, but that has nothing to do with it.
The answer shouldn't be a round of shaming but argument of the issue. One of the Democratic presidential candidates called his remarks ""disturbing and inappropriate,"" but a proper small-d democrat should have a hard time calling something inappropriate for political discourse. Those who disagree with Santorum need to accept that his bigoted views make up a decent share of the population and an even larger share of the Republican Party, and fight against him on those terms. Santorum should not be silent, he should be given all the rope he needs to hang himself or, if the state of our popular conscience turns out to be really awful, succeed even more.
