SANTORUM: I think marriage has to be one thing for everybody. We can’t have 50 different marriage laws in this country, you have to have one marriage law…
TODD: What would you do with same-sex couples who got married? Would you make them get divorced?
SANTORUM: Well, their marriage would be invalid. I think if the constitution says “marriage is this,” then people whose marriage is not consistent with the constitution… I’d love to think there’s another way of doing it.
Time was when people came to America seeking freedom. In fact, if memory serves, this country was founded by those fleeing religious oppression in their homeland. People wanted the freedom to live and worship in a manner that felt right to them. ‘Course, it wasn’t long before a uniquely American strain of religious oppression began to emerge; it’s apotheosis appears to be zealots like Rick Santorum, for whom ambition and lust for power are interchangeable with the teachings the Jesus Christ he purports to revere.
That Santorum, himself a long-running Internet joke/meme, is the one leading the latest charge against same-sex marriage…or really any rights at all for homosexuals should come as no surprise. This transparent appeal to Evangelicals and Social Conservatives is about as close to a “Hail Mary” as a Presidential candidate gets. In an effort to secure a good showing in the Iowa caucuses, Santorum is pushing the idea that he’d support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Upping the ante even further, Santorum advocates invalidating same-sex marriages already consummated.
“[Y]ou have to have one marriage law.” Why? Since when is “one size fits all” any sort of solution at all? Or is it just that people who think like Santorum can’t handle the idea that not everyone thinks, lives, believes, and loves as they do?
So…lessee if I have this straight: Government really, REALLY bad and evil…unless Government can be used to enforce your narrow, fear- and ignorance-based prejudices. Then Government good.
So, to recap: Government really, really bad, mean, nasty, awful. Government should stay out of our lives. But, in order to ensure that civilization doesn’t destroy itself, Government must enforce the moral standards of a narrow proportion of the population to the exclusion of the vast majority (including Christians)?
Yeah, I know; I never said that it was reasonable or logical…and I can’t begin to make sense of it, either. Either Big Government, whatever in the Hell that might mean, is bad. Or it serves a useful purpose. You don’t get to pick and choose when Government comes in handy based on your hatred and prejudice.
Then again, for Santorum and the rest of the American Taliban, government is merely an instrument used to support a narrow and intolerant theology/ideology.
