STATEMENT ISSUED BY SENATOR RICK SANTORUM REGARDING ASSOCIATED PRESS STORY

Washington DC -- Statement of U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) regarding misleading Associated Press story.

Senator Santorum recently sat down for an interview with the Associated Press with an understanding that a profile piece would be published regarding his 8-year tenure in the Senate. As part of the interview, the Senator discussed a case that is currently being considered by the Supreme Court, Lawrence v. Texas.

“When discussing the pending Supreme Court Case Lawrence v. Texas, my comments were specific to the right to privacy and the broader implications of a ruling on other state privacy laws.’

“In the interview, I expressed the same concern as many constitutional scholars, and discussed arguments put forward by the State of Texas, as well as Supreme Court justices. If such a law restricting personal conduct is held unconstitutional, so could other existing state laws.’

“Again, my discussion with the Associated Press was about the Supreme Court privacy case, the constitutional right to privacy in general, and in context of the impact on the family. I am a firm believer that all are equal under the Constitution. My comments should not be misconstrued in any way as a statement on individual lifestyles.”

Whatever Santorum may have said, this is another example of Republicans being held to a different standard for their speech than are Democrats. How many Democrats in the past few years have said indefensible things that have fallen on deaf ears, while Republican comments are twisted and turned into anything that supports an agenda that demonizes with the purpose of weakening the Republican party?

-PJ

Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 US 186 (1986) The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy.

BURGER, C.J., Concurring Opinion Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards. Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law…. During the English Reformation, when powers of the ecclesiastical courts were transferred to the King's Courts, the first English statute criminalizing sodomy was passed…. Blackstone described "the infamous crime against nature" as an offense of "deeper malignity" than rape, a heinous act "the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature," and "a crime not fit to be named." W. Blackstone, Commentaries . The common law of England, including its prohibition of sodomy, became the received law of Georgia and the other Colonies. In 1816, the Georgia Legislature passed the statute at issue here, and that statute has been continuously in force in one form or another since that time. To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.

Thomas Jefferson on Sodomy Sect. XIV. Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy* with a man or woman, shall be punished; if a man, by castration, a woman, by boring through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in diameter at the least. Peterson, Merrill D. "Crimes and Punishments" Thomas Jefferson: Writings Public Papers (Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. 1984) pp. 355, 356.

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