Santorum Still Riding the Hate Bus into New Hampshire

You notice the other day that Rick Santorum would annul gay marriages should he be elected President?

If you’re smart, you might have moved to Canada or perhaps Australia before he took office, but I do find it interesting, that, still stirring his anti-gay campaign, he would annul gay marriages. Of course, annulling marriages is nothing new to Catholics. “Oh no . . . never happened” goes the annulment mantra. So if Santorum became President, he would end with a wave of his pen (fortunately it isn’t that easy) thousands of marriages. Think about that . . . people that might have been married for years, children in families now broken apart by government mandate, tens of thousands of people who, when married could share benefits etc. now unable to.

Always seemed rather ridiculous to me. After all, either you were married or not. But in Santorum’s world, of course, annulment would probably be a major thing. It is ironic that, while waving his pen to end tens of thousands of marriages, Santorum argues that marriage is a key to the strength of America. And in his America, some people are more equal than others.

Of course Santorum means marriage between a man and a woman . . . not same-sex marriages, which he apparently views as beneath him. And thus continues his hate campaign, couched in his conservative views and air of conservative sensibilities, but a hate campaign nevertheless. When you campaign against a group of people, that’s hate. And Santorum’s comparison to anything other than gay marriage . . . like polygamy or sex with animals or whatever . . . is a fear tactic again meant to play to a homophobic narrow-minded minority.

Should the government be in the business of regulating what consenting adults do behind closed doors?

So as Santorum drives his hate stake deep into the heart of the radical right, one cannot help but observe that another alleged conservative wants to change the Constitution, pile on new laws and social regulations, and mandate social behavior. All to fit his idea of a perfect world.

Wouldn’t we be better served if he spent the same effort speaking out against his church’s pedophilia problem and subsequent cover-ups? His is a world where he would end access to birth control, limit women’s access to healthcare, send judges to Guam and annul tens of thousands of legal marriages.

That’s not my idea of a perfect world (is such a thing possible anyway?). These candidates need to get over the sex stuff (an issue with which they seem fabulously uncomfortable and uneducated) and start focusing on how they’re going to move the country forward, not back into the Stone Age. Stop pandering and give us solutions. Jobs, the deficit, trade deficit, immigration, building business, fixing healthcare . . . where are you? Tell me.

Now Santorum has left the cozy Iowa playground and is finding his audience isn’t as friendly. So while Santorum continues to wage his war embracing government-sanctioned discrimination, and other social doctrines he feels are important, the dialogue about what will move this country forward will hopefully change.. The socially conservative pandering will not move us forward. It stalls intelligent discussion.

Don’t tell me why you are anti-gay and anti-women, move into this world, get off those stale busses and get on to the ones most of us care about.

Grow some onions and say all people are equal, now let’s try to make this country a place where we embrace that and turn this ship around and get it moving again. Focus on the real issues. Voters will begin to shred you if you don’t.