Santorum - That's Latin for...
My friends,
Permit me a brief political digression in this snow-starved winter season. My elemental, to-my-core, stone-cold, visceral loathing of former senator and current Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum came flooding back to me when I saw this picture:
Stephen Crowley of The New York Times snapped it as the candidate spoke at a black church in Florida about a week ago. It eloquently captures its moment: the crushing ennui of the berobed African American choirmembers, the blithering bloviation inherent in each of Santorum's speeches, the miserable failure of a staged photo opportunity--the churchgoers flanking the candidate, separated by race but united by their shared hatred of the devil, the unlikely supporters urging him on to speak the truth. It is a frozen moment into which perhaps too much meaning can be read, but it is also one from which a deeply satisfying amusement can be derived.
In case you haven't been following along, Santorum scared the ever-loving shit out of reasonable people all over this land when he won the Iowa caucus, suggesting that he might actually have a chance to win the Republican nomination (and thereafter--*shudder*--the presidency). He has faded in the primaries since, but his viability as a vice-presidential candidate remains strong.
Former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska pegged Santorum best early in Rick's career. He said, "Santorum - that's Latin for 'asshole.'"
If you're still unconvinced that Bob Kerrey was right - and you haven't been following with glee Dan Savage's nearly decade-long public vendetta against Santorum - here are some words directly from his own mouth:
“If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] 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. 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.”
“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. [Sex] is supposed to be within marriage. It’s supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal…but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen…This is special and it needs to be seen as special.”
“Let’s look at what’s going to be taught in our schools because now we have same sex couples being the same and their sexual activity being seen as equal and being affirmed by society as heterosexual couples and their activity. So what is going to be taught to our people in health class in our schools? What is going to be taught to our children about who in our stories, even to little children — what are married couples? What families look like in America? So, you are going to have in our curriculum spread throughout our curriculum worldview that is fundamentally different than what is taught in schools today? Is that not a consequence of gay marriage?”
“I don’t want to make black people's live better by giving them other people’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money and provide for themselves and their families. The best way to do that is to get the manufacturing sector of the economy rolling.”
“The American Left hates Christendom. They hate Western civilization.”
“It’s amazing that so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools.”
“All the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis. They are not Palestinians. There is no Palestinian. This is Israeli land.”
So: he's a virulent homophobe, a supporter of abstinence-only education, a homeschooling zealot who would love nothing more than to dismantle the public education system, a bloody racist, an unapologetic booster of Israeli Zionism, and a pro-business capitalist who favors privatization and eschews regulation.
In short: he's a nightmare for anyone with a brain or a heart.