Reacting badly to the idea that other people have the same rights now that they do, Republicans have responded in various ways to the SCOTUS Marriage Equality ruling: from vowing to ignore it (like Judge Roy Moore), to just legislating civil marriage into oblivion (like Iowa’s Steve King), or by claiming that based on “sincerely held religious beliefs” clerks can turn away applicants for marriage licenses (like Texas attorney general Ken Paxton).
Or by saying we ought to just forget about all that global warming stuff and focus that energy on stopping Marriage Equality instead, because that’s really what’s threatening America.
That would be former senator Rick Santorum, who told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson this weekend that the fight against gay people getting married it more critical to the survival of our country than all the effects of global warming – rising temperatures, rising sea levels, and erratic and extreme weather including droughts and mega-storms.
One would think that people dying is worse than people getting married. But no:
The most important power that a president has — and obviously I’m running for president — the most important power the president has is the power of the bully pulpit. Can you imagine if instead of if the president spent all his time talking about global warming, if he talked about the importance of marriage and fathers and mothers taking responsibility for raising this children in healthy homes?
[[AD2]]
Santorum is neglecting the very important fact – and it is a fact – that those families he is so concerned about are facing the prospect of water over their heads, no clean air to breathe, no unpolluted food or water to consume, and a myriad of other climate-related problems.
But hey, at least there won’t be any gay couples, right? Attacking Marriage Equality at the expense of global warming makes no sense unless, like Bill Koenig of World Watch Daily, you think gay marriage caused the California drought.
And…well, thinking that speaks for itself.
That isn’t what Santorum is saying, though. He is flat-out saying gays getting married is the bigger problem.
“And actually promoting marriage, and actually have programs that support the idea of marriage and togetherness in order to raise children,” he says. But no problems to…you know, actually feed the little tykes once they’re born.
That, to me, is the most important thing we can do as a society, is begin to lift up marriage as an institution that’s important for the survival of our country because too many children are falling through the cracks.
If he doesn’t think children are already falling through the cracks, and through no fault of gay couples, but thanks to his own party’s politics, he is being willfully, even criminally ignorant.
Oh wait. He’s a Republican. I did not mean to be redundant. And that’s the problem. Rick Santorum is no longer the leading edge of crazy in the Republican Party. He is mainstream:
Previously, Santorum had lamented that “five unelected justices decided to redefine the foundational unit that binds together our society without public debate or input,” which, while it is the Republican consensus, is also a flat out lie.
Countless hours have been devoted to the subject. Endlessly debated, Marriage Equality has been voted on in state after state, sometimes with one result, sometimes with another.
Of course, Santorum also says he, and not the Supreme Court, will decide what is constitutional. If the court can’t speak for the Constitution, how can he? But again, consensus.
Like most every other conservative of note, Santorum has attacked the very institution of the Supreme Court and the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in creating a balance of powers through three branches of government. Declaring that this ruling ignores the Constitution (which does not forbid gay marriage), they argue in the same breath that the Constitution be abolished.
Don’t worry though, because Santorum will see you through, claiming that “leaders don’t accept bad decisions that they believe harm the country, they have the courage of their convictions and lead the country down the better path.”
You know, like ignoring the specter of unbreathable air, undrinkable water, rising sea levels, and contaminated food.
All that stuff is static to conservatives, background scatter. Santorum said that he will be completely contradictory in his reaction, that imposing what amounts to religious tyranny is somehow a form of “religious liberty and conscience.”
Imposing his beliefs on us own will be true freedom.
Yet somehow, he says, “And I will ensure that the people will have a voice in decisions that impact the rock upon which our civilization is built.”
And how does that work, exactly, if you impose your beliefs on us? Can we get this man a dictionary to go?
You can legitimately pooh-pooh Santorum and his chances of winning elected office ever again in his lifetime, but the men and women who do hold office, or who have a legitimate chance to hold office, are saying the same things Santorum is.
We used to poke fun at Santorum, and not only because of Dan Savage’s “santorum” neologism, but because he said such nutty things. He was “far out” in ways John Denver could never have imagined.
But he is not an outlier of crazy anymore; now all Republicans are saying these things.
In other words, EVERY Republican politician opposed to Marriage Equality IS in a sense Rick Santorum. They have become indistinguishable save for having more personality and perhaps better fashion sense. For all intents and purposes, Santorum IS the face of the Republican Party, of what it has become.
Which is more than a bit disturbing when you consider that, according to PolitiFact, only 13 percent of the things Santorum has said are either true or mostly true, and that fully 44 percent are either mostly false or false, with another 9 percent rated as “Pants on Fire.”
Nobody better represents the “Republican Style” than Rick Santorum. And that is how seriously off-course the GOP has strayed over the past few years. You can legitimately pooh-pooh Santorum and his chances of winning elected office ever again in his lifetime, but he is now just a voice in a most un-heavenly choir.
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