Creep of the Week
I'll be frank. I'm tired of writing about Rick Santorum. But the man just cut an incredible anti-gay streak across New Hampshire. Come on, Rick, give the other guys a chance!
On Jan. 5 Santorum made the tired same-sex couples getting marriage equals inevitable polygamy argument. Then the next day he told a town hall meeting that marriage was "an essential good," which is why gays can't have it since gays are, you know, essentially bad.
During a campaign speech on Jan. 7 at a private boarding school (I didn't think that kids could vote, but then again maybe rich kids can. Hell, at this point that would not surprise me at all) he actually told the audience that they'd be better off with a dad in jail than with two same-sex parents.
Mind you, he claimed that this "fact" came from an unnamed researcher, but Santorum is still the one who stood in front of a crowd of kids and said it out loud. "[The expert] found that even fathers in jail who had abandoned their kids were still better than no father at all to have in their children's lives," Santorum spewed.
Totally true. Kids with daddies in jail are so lucky. Known fact. Kids with gay parents are sooooo jealous. Especially the three students in the audience who, according to the school's headmaster, have gay parents. Well played, Rick. No doubt these kids will start up some prison pen pal relationships to make up for what is missing in their lives.
Although, Santorum did just mention missing fathers, so maybe he's just talking about lesbian parents? Maybe having two daddies is okay so long as one of them is in prison? It's all so confusing.
Which is why America must now allow same-sex couples to marry and have kids.
"Marriage is not a right," Santorum said according to the Los Angeles Times. "It's a privilege that is given to society by society for a reason." And that reason? "We want to encourage what is the best for children."
Otherwise we're "robbing children of something they need, they deserve, they have a right to," he said. "You may rationalize that that isn't true, but in your own life and in your own heart, you know it's true."
Okay, first of all, what does "given to society by society for a reason" even mean? Last time I checked, gays and lesbians are part of society. Santorum likes to talk about "we" and "America" as if gays and lesbians are some shiftless souls on the outskirts of civilization. Which, to use Santorum's own words, requires quite a bit of rationalizing.
Far more rationalizing than being able to admit that gay and lesbian parents are raising lots of kids who are doing just fine. Better than fine, even. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that a kid with two loving, committed parents is pretty fortunate. Even if both of those parents are moms or dads. And especially if neither is having their cellmate ink a teardrop on their face with a tattoo gun fashioned out of a Bic pen, toothbrush, and a guitar string.
