Actually, when Senator Heinz died, Governor Casey selected Harris Wofford (sp? at work, can’t be bothered to check) as his replacement. Santorum (Latin for “of the senile”) was elected at a later date.
Interestingly, John Heinz’ widow Teresa is now married to Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry.
Wow, I don’t see the WH (lack of) response that way at all. By not condemning Santorum the way that he condemned Lott, Bush is sending the clear message that he doesn’t have any particular problem with either the senator or his remarks. Bush condemned Lott the day after Lott made the remark. Like I said, the Repubs have no interest in pretending to care about queers the way they do in pretending to care about blacks.
FWiW… I went to a private college that was run by nuns and which used to be a seminary. However, now it is a regular secular college, offering the government-approved cégep curriculum. The nuns just run things; it’s not a religious school.
The Daily Kos says:
See Santorum’s letter here:
http://www.dailykos.com/archives/002460.html#002460
Senator Heinz died in a tragic accident involving his plane and a helicopter in 1991.
Bob Casey, after failing to get Lee Iococca to accept a Senate seat, appoints Harris Wolford, who had no experience in elective office.
In 1991, Wolford won the special election for Heinz’s seat, beating ex-Governor Dick Thornbergh through a combination of his calls for single-payer health care and due to Thornbergh’s bad campaign.
In 1994, Wolford is up for re-election. Santorum, who had spent 4 years reresenting the Pittsburgh suburbs in Congress (Heinz’s old seat, ironically), runs for Senate. Santorum has no opposition in the primary, due to the fact that every important Republican in Pennsylvania (Ridge, Preate, Katz, Fisher, and am I forgetting anyone?) was running for Governor. Wolford was, politically, to the left of the state on many issues, and, when combined with huge spending against him by insurance companies, the coattails of Ridge and the opponent running to Ridge’s right (combined, they won around 60% of the vote for Governor), and the generally Republican year, ended up losing.
So, in a sense, I could argue that it’s the fault of Wolford supporters in 1991 for Santorum, as Thornbergh would probably still be in the Senate had he been elected in 1991.
Oh, I remember how Senator Heinz died-I remember hearing about it, and I worked at the John Heinz History Center.
What I mean is, how Santorum ever got himself elected-so thanks for explaining it! (I was only 13-I didn’t give a rat’s ass about politics at the time!)
My mother said Santorum rubs her the wrong way-she called him a “yuppie.”
I so cannot wait for 2006, so I can vote his weaseling ass out of there.
When he was first elected, he was also a part of Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution”, and he’s still a staunch supporter of it. I get the impression he sees himself as a staunch defender of Family Values which are somehow assaulted by two people wanting to settle down and spend the rest of their lives with each other. [sarcasm] What are they thinking? Don’t they know that all the decent homosexuals are picking each other up in Schenley Park?[/sarcasm] :rolleyes:
I know that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is one of the more conservative ones in the country and, while the state may be nominally Democrat, it’s Democrat with a strong conservative streak to it. Needless to say, Santorum has never had my vote, nor will he.
CJ
First of all, your post wasn’t directed at me, thankfully. I agree with this part. The problem is line drawing in a legal sense. If certain “offenses” are viewed a certain way, and have been for centuries, it’s hard to separate them.
The place to turn is the legislature. They, of course, are craven cowards. I don’t like Santorum’s position on sodomy. (Don’t overanalyze that last sentence) But, how many Democrats are rushing forward with bills to legalize sodomy in the places it is still illegal? Seriously, tell me. I’ll send money.
Did anybody notice this from the AP interview?
So he is alleging two things here, first, that “liberals” are responsible for the Catholic Church scandal (seriously, read it again) and secondly that a priest molesting a thirteen year-old boy is a “basic homosexual relationship.”
These, ladies and gentlemen, are the words of a genuine fucktard. I defy anybody to defend them.
Well you know something is wrong with a guy who went to both Penn State and Pitt!
I mean the Penn State part is ok… BUT PITT??? 
Wait-wasn’t the whole point of the priest scandal that these relationships were NOT consensual?
Dumbass.
Well, I don’t know…I get the Penn State Alumni magazine, and some of the homophobic trash printed in “Letters to the Editor” is pretty shocking. Maybe Santorum’s preaching to the “Penn State Alumni Fucktard” constituency.
Tramp
An entire book was written on this subject, the Liberlas are the cause of all the troubles in the Catholic Church. (They are the cause of every evil in the universe according to some).
You aren’t paying attention. The argument is that the constitution protects consensual adult sexual relations. Homosexuality is an example of that type of relations, but so are incest between adults, bigamy, and other sexual practices. In other words, the argument put forth by those wishing the Supreme Court to overturn the Texas law is the SAME ARGUMENT that could be used to reverse laws forbidding other types of sexual conduct.
And far from being a moron, recognizing this fact makes me a good lawyer. This is the way the law works. Court decisions establish precedents, which are used in later cases. For example: the Supreme Court in the late 1960’s established a right to birth control. That decision later formed the basis for the constitutional right to abortion. One decision led to the other. It is foolish to not recognize this fact. **
Oh yes, forgive me for not accepting “I just know” as a plausible basis for making a given argument. Please accept my sincerest apology for asking for evidence to support a given assertion. I will never, ever question the assertions of other posters ever again; I have seen the error of my ways. :rolleyes:
Look, I don’t give two shits if gobear lives two blocks away from Santorum. I’m not about to accept “he’s just evil, trust me” as a factual statement without more. I’ll happily look at Santorum’s public statements, and I’ll happily accept firsthand examples of the kind provided by Guinistasia and tramp, but I’m not about to take a sweeping assertion at face value without some explanation as to why the assertion is accurate. **
Listen, if I came on here and said “Hillary Clinton is evil!,” without any other evidence, saying “I live in New York, so I just know, so trust me,” would you accept that as proper evidence of Hillary’s evilness?
If you do, there’s a bridge spanning the East River I’ll happily sell to you for a song.
Lemme get this straight: you’re saying a discussion about what how antidiscrimination laws operate is not a discussion about tort law? Do you realize how stupid that statement is?
This is my favorite part of his letter: " . . . draft an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to protect the holy sacrament of marriage from those who would legalize same-sex ‘marriage.’"
Gotta protect marriage from people who want to get married, and thereby destroy the concept of, ummm, marriage!
It would be an entirely ridiculous statement if that were the statement I had made.
I notice that you tend to choose to focus on a largely irrelevant portion of people posts while ignoring the substantive portions of it. I know how much you hate the concept of “substantive” anything so maybe that explains it.
Dewey, you should be enough of a lawyer to recognize the distinction between sexual acts (e.g. homosexual relations, adultery, incest) and (il)legal relationships (bigamy, polygamy).
If we’re saying the Constitutional right to privacy protects adult consensual relations in general, that would permit me and two women to live together as a family. (Somehow, I don’t think Mrs. F. would go for it, but one can always fantasize. :)) But it wouldn’t give us a right to be legally recognized as one.
So you and Santorum are right about adultery (which is already legal everywhere, AFAICT) and adult incest (does anyone still enforce that?). But not about bigamy and polygamy.
Do I really have to remind a lawyer that bigamy is not a “sexual practice?” Bigamy laws do not regulate sexual behavior, they regulate civil contracts. You can have all the hot, polyamorous sex that you want as long as you don’t marry more than one at a time. Furthermore, you don’t have to fuck anybody to be guilty of bigamy, all you have to do is sign the wedding papers. Santorum’s bigamy analogy, therefore, is totally fallacious and off-point. All he’s left with, then, is the incest comparison, and only incest between consenting adults. Santorum may even be right about that., (i.e. conceding a right to homosexual sex may open the door to allowing consensual incest) but, really, so what? Is there really some danger that removing archaic sodomy laws is going to cause an epidemic of brother/sister shenanigans? Is there anybody out there thinking “man, if only gay sex were legal, then I could cornhole Grandma?”
What do you think of Santorum’s assertion that a priest molesting a teenage boy is representative of a “basic homosexual relationship?” How about his statement that homosexual “acts” are damaging to families? Doesn’t he sound just a little bit bigoted to you?
Dewey, as I said, I wasn;t making bald asertions–there’s plenty of evidence. The thing is, Santorum’s comment by itself was homophobic, but you’re so busy trrying to parse the legal distinctions that the rhetoric went right past you.
I’m still waiting for you to admit that you were wrong in trying to excuse Santorum’s comment as a mere gloss on the legal ramifications of the possible Supreme Court decision. The dude’s a fag-baiter, period.