The gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities should be doing more than bitching and moaning and sending out press releases calling for the resignation of Republican Sen. Rick Santorum.
What we really need to do is learn a hard lesson from this little escapade.
Actually, I personally think it's a pretty easy, pretty obvious lesson. But it's one that many in our community seem to be in denial about. The lesson is that the Republican party and its leaders remain virulently right wing, including being maddeningly anti-gay.
I'm no huge fan of the Democratic party, which has its own problems, including on some remaining gay and lesbian issues, such as marriage. But no sensible, truthful person can deny that the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats on GLBT issues is immense.
In recent years—particularly since Pat Buchanan's lunatic rantings at a Republican National Convention, followed by the loss of the presidency by Bush senior—the Republican party's public relations machine has cleverly made a concerted effort to reconstruct the image of the party. It's no coincidence that Bush junior ran as a 'compassionate conservative' in the last election.
But that more palatable make-over is a deceptive mask. At its core, the Republican party remains frighteningly right-wing. Furthermore, the party as a whole has not progressed significantly on how it approaches gay and lesbian people and our issues. Indeed, as Santorum's painfully honest comments indicate, the party and its leaders continue to be willing to throw gay and lesbian people to the lions. Though it may have been quietly covered up in the past few years, homophobia remains the rule rather than the exception in the Republican party.
The Santorum debacle is proof positive of this rather apparent political truth.
In some ways, I can't help but thank Mr. Santorum for his blatantly honest assessment of where he stands on gay issues in his now-infamous interview with the Associated Press. He said if you interpret Constitutional rights to extend to cover what gay and lesbian people do in the privacy of their own homes, '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 … . Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does.' He stopped just short of likening gay sex to sex with dogs and children.
What is truly instructive about the whole Santorum incident, however, is not what Santorum said. Most elected Republicans probably share Santorum's sentiments, though they are smarter than to voice them so publicly. What is important is how the Republican party has responded to Santorum's little outburst.
It's important to remember that Santorum is not just another Republican nobody with a big mouth. He is the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, and is the third-ranking Republican in the Senate. He is a party leader.
If the Republican party and its leadership disapproved of Santorum's railings against homosexuals, it would be pretty easy to send that message to him and to the Republican faithful. One gesture might be to strip Santorum of his leadership position, without asking him to resign.
But even without resorting to such disciplinary measures, the Republican party and its leaders could have done a number of things to signal their disagreement with Santorum and distance themselves from his radical, right-wing position. Instead, they chose not only to support him, but to make him a hero of sorts.
In the Republican camp, Santorum's stock has actually risen. Many are holding him up as a truth-speaker, even if he is one who isn't particularly wise about how and when to articulate his core beliefs. He's also being championed as a defender of free speech, and an uncompromising idealist who isn't afraid to stand up to those meanie liberals who, after all, are ruining the world anyway.
According to Newsweek, powerful and influential people on the right flooded the White House with calls warning the president 'not to walk away from Rick.' And he didn't. Through a spokesman, President Bush defended Santorum: 'The president has confidence in the senator and believes he's doing a good job as senator.'
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist rushed to Santorum's defense, saying 'Rick is a consistent voice for inclusion and compassion in the Republican Party and in the Senate, and to suggest otherwise is just politics.'
The Weekly Standard—a conservative publication considered to have strong influence among Republicans—called Santorum's remarks 'defensible.'
And Pennsylvania Republican State Committee spokesman Chad Saylor told the Harrisburg Partiot-News: 'If we're surprised about anything, it's the [Democrats'] attempt to hype this. Pennsylvanians are concerned about the war and the economy, not about this nonsense.'
Only one Republican-affiliated group publicly opposed Santorum's words. The Republican Unity Coalition—billed as a gay-straight alliance—called on Santorum to issue an apology. That's it.
But in its short history as a group, the RUC has been, and remains, pretty spineless on gay and lesbian issues. It was established after Bush took office, primarily to punish the leadership of the Log Cabin Republicans for supporting Sen. John McCain in the Republican presidential primaries. The group does little of anything substantial, and never criticizes the president. It's fair to say the group is nothing more than window dressing for the Republican party's attempt to portray itself as having a more compassionate soul.
All in all, Santorum walks out of the firestorm not only unscathed, but bolstered as a bold hero unafraid to stand up for the core of Republican values. The message this sends to the public—but especially to fanatic conservatives—is that it's not only OK to be anti-gay, it's totally permissible.
Right wingers and conservatives around the country have taken note of Santorum's success—and are undoubtedly emboldened to use it in clever ways in the future, whether in political campaigns or in fighting progress on gay rights.
As we approach a presidential election year, gays and lesbians need to evaluate what this hard political reality means for our future.
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