Sen. Santorum, I Can't Believe You Said That

The BBQ Pit
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I’m again amazed at your insistence on choosing the word “could” over the word “does.” Are you suggesting that the full text of the AP interview can be interpreted in some fashion other than anti-gay?

By the way, why is it that “absent context” it’s reasonable to interpret the statement as possibly “pro-gay” but not reasonable to interpret it as anti-gay? Also, why do you continue falsely to claim that the OP quote is, or can be read, devoid of context when this is not possible?

You said it, not me.

Look. Incest is not generally something that is viewed as morally neutral. Adultery is not generally viewed as morally neutral. Bigamy and polygamy are not viewed as morally neutral subjects. All of them are in fact viewed generally speaking as immoral. You can pretend to yourself all that you like that grouping these negatively-viewed sexual and relational choices together with same-sex sodomy somehow carries with it no implication that the speaker doesn’t view same-sex sodomy as negative but for those of us with a clue in the world, humming “One of these things is not like the other” from Sesame Street is not a viable option. Don’t you find it the least bit telling that the only two people who are claiming that Santorum’s remarks were not reasonably interpreted as anti-gay are Santorum and you?

Um, yeah, he would be. You and Senator Asshat may have some vested interest in claiming otherwise (I know what his is but other than blind ego I can’t begin to fathom yours) but your claims don’t make it so.

Actually, yeah it does. And I’ve explained twice now why the OP quote all by its lonesome is more than enough to hang the anti-gay label on Senator Asshat. Your repeated lame attempts to parse it down and down notwithstanding, the simple fact remains that comparisons of consensual gay sex to fucking one’s own children is in and of itself anti-gay. Your desperate efforts to claim that the OP quote isn’t anti-gay and is strictly an analysis of the pending case is what is not plausible.

Oh, and if you’d like a reading list about what constitutes the struggle for gay equality before the next time you sniffily dismiss the work of tens of thousands of people who have fought over the last several decades for social justice, I’d be happy to provide it for you. Given your lack of reading comprehension and your cussed insistence on misinterpreting the written word, I’ll even try to find some picture books.

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I tend to think the full text does in fact indicate a measure of antigay sentiment on Santorum’s part. But the OP did not contain the full text, nor did the link provided by the OP. To ascribe homophobia based only on the content of the OP would have been premature.

Absent context, it is inappropriate to read it as either pro or anti gay. It could be either. Context determines which it is. **

Why is it not possible? If an anonymous Pennsylvania Republican spoke those words, and you knew nothing else about him – not his background, not other speeches he’s made, not the legislation he supported, not even the other parts of the interview – you would lack any kind of context to frame those remarks. In that situation, you would necessarily be reading the quote devoid of context. All I’m saying is that it would be premature to assign nefarious motives until you’ve had a chance to review that context, be it for good or ill. **

Answer the fucking question. I’ve made that argument; does that, in your view, make me a homophobe?

Because I’d take issue that that characterization. I oppose the Texas law. I think they should repeal it at the earliest available opportunity. I think it is awful as a matter of policy and should never been made the law of the state. But I don’t think there is a constitutional problem with the law, and recognize that the argument in favor of finding that law unconstitutional also operate to make other, less savory practices constitutionally protected.

There now – you have context for my remarks. If I had spoken the words in the OP, and you knew nothing else about me, and on that basis alone you called me a homophobe, you would be wrong. You would have been premature in your judgment. When shown the language above (and when I link to many other instances where I’ve said the same thing so you know it isn’t a recent fabrication), that context shows that my speaking the words in the OP was not a homophobic act. The point is, you need to wait until you have sufficient context to judge those words. Jumping the gun is not a good idea. **

Of course. That’s the point of the argument: ascribing constitutional protection to morally-neutral activity A (homosexual sodomy) necessarily means ascribing constitutional protection to morally-reprehensible activity B (adult incest). Making that point does not entail calling activity A morally faulty – it simply points out the ramifications of the constitutional argument.

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“Sometimes”? Please. In the same sense that the sun “sometimes” rises, perhaps.
(Before you ask, the answer is “an eclipse occurring at dawn,” which happens with roughly the same frequency as the courts accept a novel SDP claim.)

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Meh. You’re still left basically saying “the courts only abuse their power on rare occasions,” which is hardly a persuasive argument IMO.

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Strange, I don’t recall saying anything about abuse of power. I thought I was merely making the point that your hatred of SDP is entirely out of proportion with the reality of SDP.

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The “crock of shit” here, Dewey, is the theory you and Mr. Justice Scalia seem to have come up with is that our rights as American citizens are privileges given by an all-powerful beneficient government and specifically enumerated, so that the Federal government has power to impede any action not carefully listed somewhere in the U.S. Constitution, and the states are similarly limited, their own constitutions impeding them to the extent that they fail to amend them (which some states do as an ongoing process).

That is not the vision that sent men to risk their lives at Saratoga, Guilford Courthouse, Fort Mc. Henry, New Orleans, Antietam, Manasses, the Wilderness, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, Petersburg, San Juan Hill, the Ardennes, Midway, Kasserine Pass, Monte Cassino, Normandy, Bastogne, Pork Chop Hill, Hue, Kuwait, Mogadishu, Kosovo, and Baghdad. That is not the spirit of the Federalist Papers. That is not the concept of James Iredell, John Marshall, Roger Taney, Samuel F. Miller, Stephen Field, John Marshall Harlan I or II, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Taft, Charles Evans Hughes, James McReynolds, Benjamin Cardozo, Louis Brandeis, Harlan F. Stone, Robert Jackson, Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, or William J. Brennan.

That is the view of an advocate of totalitarianism, as The Ryan stated. To be sure, you think that “the people” have the right to identify rights through the acts of their elected representatives. A good look at the conservative abuse of substantive due process in the Taft and early Hughes courts would disabuse you of that idea; any number possible cites regarding election chicanery, ranging from the SCOTUS Nixon v. Herndon, Nixon v. Condon, Baker v. Carr, and Reynolds v. Sims to an unbiased account of Election 2000 in Florida, will make it clear that that is not a sufficient defense.

Get a new soapbox – the one you’re speaking from is starting to look like you have no interest in American liberty so long as you can practice M&A in peace – and you will learn the hard way what Ben Franklin meant.

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Whoa, slow down there Dewey. Don’t hurt yourself expressing that decisive point of view.

Uh, and again no. See, those of us who read the occasional story about gay issues immediately recognize the “incest/adultery/bigamy” line of “reasoning” as anti-gay rhetoric.

Because language beyond the Santorum quote exists. The only way that the remarks could be completely without context is if they were the first words one ever read.

“One of these things is not like the other…one of these things is not the same…” What an amazing coincidence that an argument in opposition to legalizing same-sex sodomy should just happen to invoke three of the Big Five (adultery, incest and bigamy…he left out bestiality and necrophilia although the “man on dog” comment almost picked up the spare). I’m sure Senator Asshat had no idea that anti-gay bigots, in opposing every gay issue ever, invoke one or more of these things as justification for their opposition. And I firmly believe that Senator Asshat was purely commenting on the legal analysis of the case. And if you’re very nice I’ll show you the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge; I bought it on my trip.

Oh, and dewdrop? Did you not see this post from **Libertarian[/]?

This looks to me like he’s ascribing sinister motives to the interviewer without sufficient justification. Sic 'im!

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Dewey, you seem convinced that SCOTUS will overturn on due process grounds but what about the possibility of equal protection? That sounds like a more feasible justification to me.

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Polycarp: how odd that you would describe as “totalitarian” a view that seeks to insure that the shaping of government remains in the hands of the people – hardly a feature of totalitarian regimes of the past.

What minty was saying was indeed a crock of shit: the claim that SDP is “rooted in the text” is plainly fanciful. Serious advocates of SDP don’t try to make such ridiculous points – they admit that their view is not rooted in the text and then construct rationales for why that is acceptable.

And this is just damned puzzling:

I never said the courts had no role, nor did I say they should not enforce existing textual constitutional provisions. Both Nixon cases – dealing with black voting in the primary process – were correctly decided under the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment and under the fifteenth amendment. SDP isn’t implicated. Reynolds v. Sims and Baker v. Carr are apportionment cases also premised on the equal protection clause, and while I have some issues with those decisions (why is representation by geography OK for the US Senate but not for bicameral state legislatures?) they too do not implicate SDP. I’m all for vigorous judicial enforcement of the fifteenth, nineteenth, twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth amendment. The courts should be vigilant in preventing efforts to suppress the right to vote on such grounds precisely because self-governance is so important.

Also FTR I’m opposed to the use of SDP in the pursuit of conservative policies as well – I consider Justice Holmes’ dissent in Lochner is the greatest thing ever written by a Supreme Court justice.

(And I would be greatly pleased to practice M&A in peace; thank you so much for the reminder that I am not doing so at present.)

Otto: You still haven’t answered my questions: does my making that argument make me a homophobe in your view? Why or why not? If not, why would my registration as a Republican and seeking office in Pennsylvania change that analysis?

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Since sexual orientation is not a suspect or quasi-suspect classification, an equal protection challenge on that basis would be analyzed using the rational basis test, a test that is basically impossible for the state to fail. Thus, to be successful, an equal protection argument would have to be premised on gender discrimination (a quasi-suspect class). That argument is more difficult to make. See the GD thread I linked to above – this issue was also discussed extensively.

I actually think overturning on equal protection grounds is more likely than overturning on SDP grounds – the courts only reach for SDP if they can’t reach the result they want any other way. :slight_smile:

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So IOW, IYHO, you’ve been going on about being unjustly maligned in the first half of page 1 for the past 4 pages.

To put the best possible face on this, you need a life.

But reading your posts in that first half-page is instructive, because you started off discussing Santorum’s comments generally, rather than specifically that portion that was in the OP. From your first post in this thread:

Which also brings in your puzzling defense of Santorum’s apples-and-oranges comparison of homosexual acts and bigamy.

Anyway, from your second post:

You were in fact wrong in your claim about what Santorum said, which was clearly pointed out a short way down the page. So other posters would be equally justified in hammering you about this for four pages, as you are in criticizing them over four pages for what they said about you in the first half-page.

Not to mention this gem, from your first post:

It was added in brackets, but accurately so. Santorum was responding to a question about homosexual sex, and was talking about Texas’ (specifically homosexual) sodomy law in his response. The legal argument may be just as accurate without the ‘gay’ in brackets, but this the gist of his remarks would be a lot muddier without it. He’s not talking about sex in general; he’s talking about gay sex. Regardless of what legal implications he’s drawing.

I especially like this smear on the reportage:

As we now know, the AP story was far, far gentler on Santorum than it might have been. They were kind enough to cut out much - like the ‘man-on-dog’ bit - that would have been much harsher. The AP could have quite legitimately shown Santorum as the raving homophobe he is, instead of showing him as a very toned-down version of himself.

Haven’t seen your retraction. You’re being so hard on everyone else; you might want to hold yourself to your high standards.

And in your third post:

Again, you’ve made the false assumption that Santorum’s statement didn’t specifically reference gays. You had no reason to make the assumption that the [gay] was in there inappropriately. But you made it anyway.

gobear asked, “are you saying that Santoruim was not in fact denouncing the possibility of the Supreme Court legitimizing the right to privacy for gay folk?” In your fifth post, you respond:

Once again, you make the assumption that Santorum was not actually attacking gay sex in his remarks. On what basis? You don’t say. And once again, you don’t bother to qualify with “assuming the remarks quoted in the OP are all he said,” or anything like that. (All in all, you have nine posts in that first half-page, and I think maybe two of them imply that you’re referring to only that part of Santorum’s remarks that are quoted in the OP. By and large, you don’t make that very clear. So when further excerpts from the interview were brought to light, the thing to do was to say, “OK, then - Santorum wasn’t making the dry legal commentary that I repeatedly claimed he’d made, on the basis of insufficient context.”

But you didn’t. Your bad. (Four pages of your bad, which is a lot of bad.)

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You went through all of my early posts and reproduced them here, and yet I’m the one who needs a life?

:rolleyes:**

Prior to zut’s Page 1 post of 11:26 AM EST, there was no additional context (other than a note by Guinistasia that Santorum had given a tirade on abortion at her college) – all we had was the OP. Why on earth would I say “I’m only talking about the comments in the OP” when the OP’s comments were the only ones made present in the thread? **

Have you been reading the thread at all? I repeatedly said in my early posts that Santorum might well be a raging homophobe – indeed, in my post of 11:18 AM EST, I wrote “If you wish to show Santorum is anti-gay, you need to present evidence other than this quotation. And I have no dog in this hunt: if Santorum has indeed made anti-gay statements, I will join you in denouncing those remarks.”

After other statements by Santorum came to light, I indicated that Santorum probably was antigay, but noted that the words in the OP, standing alone, did not indicate homophobia. And that’s been my position since.

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I read the whole thread (except the last two posts) in one sitting. I agree with all those who think that Santorum is a homophobe, and one who is not even smooth enough to pull it off without political repercussions.

I also must add that Dewey has come off as reasonable and informative. Try reading the thread in one shot (talk about needing a life :wink: ) and Dewey’s statements are clear. I don’t know how he could have clarified his position more. I appreciate the illumination he provided regarding constitutional law, and I fully agree with his position that this is a shitty law that reasonable people should work hard to overturn. I would also have responded as he did if I had people unreasonably impugning my honesty. That this has gone on for umpteen pages ain’t his fault.

Just my opinion, which I thought I’d add in reaction to this unseemly dog pile, full of people on both sides who seem, beyond points of semantics, to be in violent agreement.

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Assuming arguendo that Santorum is a raging homophobe, which seems quite possible, I’d still like to hear about the brave Democrats proposing legislation to end the sodomy laws in the states where it is illegal. Do we really want the court system deciding sexual matters based on a silent constitution? Project that out a few years or decades.

Too bad we’ve scrapped the plain meaning of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. You might be able to get some traction out of those.

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Beagle, you are absolutely right. This fact, and stuff like Democratic support of the DOMA, is a point of shame for the party. I think it’s gutless and hypocritical.

However, one good thing about the Democrats on this issue is that, in general, they do not get a significant number of votes from people who would like nothing more to see gay people made social and legal pariahs until they are either converted into heterosexual Christianity, or die under the “scourge of God,” AIDS.

That may be a smaller favor than I think it is, but there you go.

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Yep, I read all nine of your posts in that first half-page. Must’ve taken me at least three or four minutes. C&Ping parts of four of them in here might’ve burned another minute or so. Meanwhile, you’ve been fighting over whether some comments were justified by the OP alone for four whole pages after any possible defects in the OP were laid to rest.

Because it was clear from the initial article that the quoted comments were part of a more extensive piece, which might well be out there, even if nobody had yet linked to it in the less than 5 hours between the OP and zut’s doing so.

The absence of more complete data at that point did not justify any sort of assumption that what you were seeing so far was all there was. Any such assumption deserved to be stated.

You were just like the idiots who kept going, “Look, they’ve found WMDs again!” during the Iraq war. Only in your case, it was “Look, Santorum’s making a dry legal argument!” He wasn’t.

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Beagle, I’ve witnessed* attempts in VA and SC to repeal the sodomy laws - VA in the 1980s, and SC in the 90s. In both states, the supporters of repeal were overwhelmingly Democratic, and in VA, the religious right demagogued it relentlessly; can’t remember about SC. (The guv vetoed that attempted repeal, after it had amazingly made its way through both houses of the legislature.)

For obvious reasons, opponents of such laws in the legislature aren’t going to exhibit such bravery all that often: the upside is that you solidify your support with people who are in your corner anyway, and the downside is that you get painted as a perv, and you make a bunch of people who might have voted for you on other grounds madder than hornets at you. And all this over an issue that’s a ways down on most legislators’ priority lists.

  • [sub]‘Witnessed’ in the sense of living there and following the topic in the newspapers at the time. [/sub]
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Because I think the point I was making – that people should not level charges of homophobia without first presenting adequate evidence of that fact – was a point worth defending. That point is well worth four pages of my time.

Your point, on the other hand is…well, what exactly? That I could have been more precise in my early posts to this thread? OK, fine. Whoopitie do.

One wonders why you continue to respond to my posts if you think they are such a waste of time. **

Yes, yes, imagine the gall of me giving the accused the benefit of the doubt. Sorry, I take notions of innocence before proof of guilt seriously.

Could I have added “assuming there is nothing beyond the text of the OP regarding homosexuality” in my early posts? Sure. I thought reasonable people would find that assumption implicit – clearly, if the next sentence Santorum spoke was “Oh, and I hate gay people” (to use an extreme example) then my initial analysis of his remarks would change. Shame on me for assuming my target audience was intelligent enough to recognize that fact. **

This is an odd example to choose, given that my central point throughout the thread has been “you should provide better evidence that Santorum is a homophobe before you level that charge.” It seems to me the folks who were willing to cast Santorum as a homophobe on the basis of nothing more than the text of the OP are a lot more like those who scream WMD’s have been found every time the US stumbles upon agricultural fertilizer.

(N.B.: there are many in this thread who do in fact continue to explicitly claim that the text of the OP, independent of any additional subsequent context, is sufficient to label someone a homophobe – a position I find personally offensive, since I have made the argument made in the OP even as I despise the Texas law.)

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Thank you for the kind words Bob Cos.

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From an Op-Ed piece at www.truthout.org by Howard Dean, M.D., former Governor of Vermont and candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for President in 2004:

I unreservedly agree.