OutRight

by Dale Carpenter

AFTER SANTORUM

The latest GOP antigay pronouncements reveal both the homophobia and progress of the Republican Party

There are two things all reasonable people can agree on. First, Democrats are better than Republicans on gay issues. Even when you find a gay-friendly Republican, his Democrat opponent is almost always better. Wherever there’s an antigay initiative brewing, Republicans are stirring it. And when something idiotic is said about gays, it almost always comes from a Republican mouth.

The second thing reasonable people can agree on is that we would be much better off if none of the above were true.

The real question has always been, How do we get from here to there?

One side says we should cozy up to the GOP, work from the inside to undermine homohaters, dispel stereotypes through our open participation in the party, and reward small Republican nods to equality in order to encourage more such progress.

The other side says we should just beat the GOP into submission.

Into this old debate walks Rick Santorum, the third-highest ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate. Ruminating on the constitutionality of antigay sodomy laws, Santorum recently told the Associated Press. “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 incest, you have the right to adultery.”

Santorum quickly attempted to clarify these remarks, saying in a press release, “My discussion with the Associated Press was about the Supreme Court privacy case, [and] the constitutional right to privacy in general…. My comments should not be misconstrued in any way as a statement on individual lifestyles.”

The first Santorum statement suggests, “Courts will be unable to distinguish between gays and others, like polygamists and adulterers.” It is a slippery-slope argument that says, in effect, “We must refuse to make a sound decision today for fear of having to make a sensible distinction tomorrow.”

Santorum’s second statement implies, “I, however, am personally able to distinguish gays from these others.”

Does Santorum really believe he can make simple distinctions while judges trained in making them cannot? The law is not a completely foreign thing. The kinds of arguments you make to your friends are often made, in specialized language, to courts.

One could persuasively argue to a person of sound mind that gay sex in itself is not socially harmful and so can safely be protected as a right against the nosy preferences of other citizens. But polygamy, incest, and adultery are socially harmful and shouldn’t be similarly protected as rights. (That’s not to say they should necessarily be criminalized.) Plural marriage in modern times in our country would be unstable and would leave many people without a potential partner to care for and civilize them. Incest threatens to sexualize family relations. Adultery undermines a state-sanctioned and -supported union. And so on. It’s not as if judges, unlike normal people, can’t understand these arguments.

There’s just no excuse for what Santorum said.

So what’s the GOP’s excuse for him? Critics of the Republican Party have made much of the fact that he could say such things and keep his job. Democrats called it proof that Republicans are all bigots. Indeed, although a handful of prominent Republicans criticized Santorum, most Republican leaders offered at least tepid support. Through his spokesperson, President Bush belatedly called Santorum “inclusive.”

Still, the GOP is improving, incrementally. It’s noteworthy that no Republican leader (other than the execrable Tom DeLay) has endorsed the substance of Santorum’s actual comments, as opposed to defending the man’s political position. I suspect they privately think his comments were ill advised but are loath to lose a second top Senate leader over casual remarks in the space of six months.

The White House has taken no public stand on the pending Supreme Court sodomy case, though it could have, and in an earlier era would have. While Bush doesn’t have the gay-rights zeal of a PFLAG parent, he has done some positive things, like hiring openly gay people and retaining an executive order banning antigay discrimination in federal employment. The only people critical of him for this within his party are religious conservatives. Bush needs their support to win re-election, and he has been doing about as much as he can on gay issues without completely alienating that political base.

So how does the Santorum controversy affect the old debate about strategy between gay Republicans and gay GOP-bashers? The fact is, not much, because it doesn’t alter two basic truths.

Both sides ignore that what is moving the Republican Party in the right direction more than anything else is a culture that is evolving to accept gays. The pace may seem slow, but the overall direction has been one way. We might be able to nudge the party a little faster through one method or another, but whatever we do, the GOP can’t forever stay mired in a discredited past and hope to win elections in the future.

The other thing both sides ignore is that there is room for both strategies. We needn’t put all our eggs in one political basket. Those of us who generally favor less regulation, lower taxes, and a strong national defense should stay and work inside the GOP, despite these occasional troglodyte eruptions. Those gays who favor “social justice” and worldwide peace through marches should throw stones at the GOP, despite gradual improvements.

Some see these divergent strategies as evidence of “division” when we need “unity.” I say it’s smart politics.

Writing from the conservative end of the political spectrum, Dale Carpenter began his column for OutSmart in 1994, when he lived in Houston. Now residing in Minneapolis, Carpenter is a University of Minnesota Law School professor. He can be reached at OutRight@aol.com.

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