sisyphusshrugged

PUT THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK aside for a moment and consider, simply, Sen. Rick Santorum's list: "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home," he told an Associated Press reporter this week, "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." By its grammatical construction this is a list of approximate equals, in this case equal in deviance. It may be broad-minded of Mr. Santorum (R-Pa.) to include adultery, as that must encompass some in his professional acquaintance. But that's small comfort to those who oppose prejudice against homosexuals, now offensively lumped in by the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference with bigamists and those who practice incest, not to mention the vast Caligulan landscape that "anything" might encompass...

but, on the other hand,

Santorum expounded on homosexuality in a recent interview with the Associated Press. He raised the topic himself when he mentioned a pending Supreme Court case about Texas's sodomy law, which prohibits you-know-what, and envisioned what would happen if the law was inexplicably overturned:

"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."

Santorum later said his remarks "should not be misconstrued in any way as a statement on individual lifestyles." I wouldn't dare.

Not to be picky, but when Santorum likens homosexuality to, say, incest, he is conjuring up an offense in which there often is a victim -- commonly a child. That is not the same as consensual sex between adults, which, some maintain, ought to be the business of no one else, particularly the government.

As for adultery, another of the hideous possibilities Santorum mentioned, it is already not a crime in most of the country -- and not much of a crime anywhere else. As this is being written, my crack research staff is trying to find the last time the cops raided anyone's home for adultery. One of them cynically suggested the police would have far less work if they raided homes on suspicion of fidelity.

Of course, the usual gay and liberal groups denounced Santorum, but Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee came to his defense with alacrity. He pointed out that Santorum "is a consistent voice for inclusion and compassion in the Republican Party and in the Senate and to suggest otherwise is just plain politics." The eloquence of that rebuttal helps explain why some observers detect a touch of Churchill in the Tennessean.

Still, some may quibble and niggle by suggesting that being "a voice for inclusion and compassion in the Republican Party" is a pretty low bar. These cynics should be dismissed out of hand as "elites." As luck would have it, Gary Bauer, the illustrious former GOP presidential candidate, used precisely that word -- "elites" -- to characterize Santorum's critics. He added that Santorum's remarks "were pretty much in the mainstream of where most of the country is" -- a redundancy, but well worth it.

The elites, of course, compared Santorum's remarks on homosexuality with Trent Lott's on racial segregation and his apparent nostalgia for the good ol' days of dual water fountains, school systems and state parks and the occasional, but regrettable, lynching. In fact, there is no comparison. The GOP is seeking the black vote, but homosexuals remain reviled among the mainstream of conservative theologians who are dear to the heart of the Republican Party. These are the people who cannot decide which is more evil -- Islam or homosexuality. It is a dilemma that I look to Franklin Graham to solve.

As is always the case -- these people are so predictable -- some elite columnist is going to point out that homosexuals are often the victim of hate crimes...

I get from this that the Post is starting to worry about the libertarians.