perfidy

Jacob Levy over at Volokh Conspiracy has more on Rick Santorum. He links the entire Santorum interview and rightly points out that, in context, the speech is unambiguous: Santorum is saying that homosexual sex is the same, morally, as doing Lassie, your sister, or a child, that it's filthy and wrong, and that it should be outlawed. His clutch argument is that privacy rights that protect homosexuals from prosecution are also what led to the priest-sex scandals currently plaguing the Boston Archdiocese and elsewhere. Wha...?

I have a feeling that this isn't going to lose Santorum any votes in Pennsylvania, by the way. I also don't think the Republican Party is going to jeopardize its far-right constituency at all, and will stay mute on this incident.

From the interview come this priceless exchange

And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual 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. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was created, it was created in Griswold -- Griswold was the contraceptive case -- and abortion. And now we're just extending it out. And the further you extend it out, the more you -- this freedom actually intervenes and affects the family. You say, well, it's my individual freedom. Yes, but it destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that's antithetical to strong, healthy families. Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.

Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality --

AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.

SANTORUM: And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society.

AP: Sorry, I just never expected to talk about that when I came over here to interview you. . . .

Unambiguous, disturbing, and funny to boot!! Woo HOO!!
[update] Over at Matthew Yglesias' discussion, Chris Lawrence comments: "I love a two-party system where one wants to take all my money and the other wants to make sure I don't get laid. No wonder nobody votes..."