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The
furor over Senator Rick Santorum's recent comments concerning
homosexuality and the law continues unabated.
During
an interview with the Associated Press, Santorum mentioned
the pending Lawrence v. Texas case, in which the Supreme
Court will decide the constitutionality of Texas's prohibition
against sodomy. Santorum said, "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."
As
soon as his comments became public, the press and gay
rights groups vilified Santorum. His words were compared
to controversial and racially insensitive remarks made
by Senator Trent Lott last fall.
The
New York Times said that the Senator's "remarks equating
homosexuality with polygamy and incest" wrote a "new
chapter" in "the long and conflicted history
between gays and Republicans."
The
problem is, of course, that he did no such thing. Santorum
was merely stating what should be obvious to anyone who
has followed the Court's decisions in this area. Any reasoning
the Court uses to overturn the Texas law can be applied
to the other conduct Santorum cited. Santorum has a lot
of company in his thinking. I and others have written
the same thing in scholarly journals. Justice Scalia argued
the same thing in his dissent in Planned Parenthood v.
Casey.
What's
more, Santorum's critics know this. So what's behind the
demagoguery? The same thing that is behind all demagogues:
that is, intimidate those with whom you disagree. In Santorum's
case, the source of the ire isn't his legal analysis;
it is his moral analysis. As a devout Catholic, he does
not believe that the state ought to sanction all kinds
of sexual behavior.
Tolerance
used to mean an open market for the free discussion of
everyone's truth claims—not anymore. Over the past
few decades, it has been redefined to be the notion that
not only should I have the right to do what I want to
do, but you have to approve of it, as well.
Failure
to show approval is considered to be, at best, narrow-mindedness
and, at worst, bigotry and hate-mongering. This isn't
my conclusion. It's what the Supreme Court said in Romer
v. Evans, when it invalidated a Colorado constitutional
amendment barring anti-discrimination laws based on sexual
orientation. The Court said that only "animus,"
or bias, could have caused the voters to vote for such
a law.
And
the stakes are about to get higher. Massachusetts is on
the verge of creating a right to same-sex marriage. If
that happens, says Stanley Kurtz of the Hoover Institution,
same-sex couples from across the country will get married
in Massachusetts, return home, and demand that their "marriages"
be recognized in their states. Their efforts will be enhanced
if moral objections to homosexuality are automatically
dismissed as bigotry.
And
this is what's really at stake in the debate over Santorum's
comments: not a politician's fortunes, but the meaning
of tolerance and freedom of conscience. It's whether people
of faith will be able to state publicly what they believe
or whether the only right left to Americans will be one
of so-called "sexual freedom."
Copyright
(c) 2003 Prison Fellowship Ministries
"BreakPoint
with Chuck Colson" is a daily commentary on news
and trends from a Christian perspective. Heard on more
than 1000 radio outlets nationwide, BreakPoint transcripts
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BreakPoint
is a production of The Wilberforce Forum, a division of
Prison Fellowship Ministries.
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