Rick Santorum begins an ignorant war on same-sex families

Another GOP presidential candidate seems to be jumping on the homophobia train.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum had a two hour long video with the conservative CNS News. This video, created by People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch, captured his comments about not just marriage equality but gay adoption and same-sex households:



Basically Santorum said that gay adoption shouldn't be allowed because it is "common sense" that we should not "defy nature" just because "a certain group of people want to be affirmed by society"

There are so many things wrong with Santorum's position. First of all, he and the interviewer seem to be implying that children are being taken away from perfectly good homes in order to supposedly suit the "selfish needs" of the lgbt community.

This is a lie. The irony is that Santorum's interview came out the same time as the following:

After a successful fight to overturn Florida’s ban on adoption by gay men and lesbians, the two young brothers adopted by Martin Gill participated in an adoption ceremony in Judge Cindy Lederman's chambers in Miami-Dade County Juvenile Court today, marking the final step in their adoption process. Gill and his partner had served as foster parents to the two brothers for six years. Gill worked with the American Civil Liberties Union to fight for the right to adopt them by challenging Florida’s 33-year-old ban on gay people adopting. As a result of the ACLU lawsuit on behalf of Gill, the ban was ended last year.

“We are thrilled that after so many years, we are officially a family in the eyes of the law,” said Gill. “All children deserve a permanent, loving home. This is a happy day.”

In November 2008, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Lederman held that the statute barring adoption by gay people is unconstitutional and granted Gill's petition to adopt brothers. Last year, the Third District Court of Appeal upheld that decision after the state appealed.

“Martin and his family were instrumental in ending one of the most discriminatory laws in the country,” said Leslie Cooper, staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Project. “Hopefully now, thousands of children in Florida who are waiting to be adopted will be able to know the love and support of having a family.”

To Santorum, no matter how much love and support the Gill family entails, it is inferior to his version of  "family" because the fathers are "dirty homosexuals" who only adopted children in order to "force society to affirm their lifestyle. "

All of that other stuff about children being entitled to a "permanent, loving home" is simply a dodge propagated by National Homosexual Headquarters.

What a load of nonsense.

Perhaps before talking about something which he clearly has no knowledge of, Santorum should educate himself on the simple reality of same-sex households. They are here, they are numerous, and they are filled with love and support, just like every normal household should be.

As for now, Santorum wouldn't know common sense if it grew teeth and bit him on his homophobic rump.

And if he steps anywhere near the White House with that attitude - even for a visit, I suggest a serious fumigation of the premises.

Related posts:

Same-sex families are growing rapidly, can no longer be ignored

NOM needs to stop peddling in fantasy and face reality about same-sex families

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Same-sex families are growing rapidly, can no longer be ignored

Not too many people are aware of this, but the idea of same-sex families is the proverbial "third rail" for those who fight against marriage equality.

The very existence of these families does more to negate their arguments about "marriage being about the procreation and protection of children" than anything ever said by the lgbt community and our allies.

Therefore, it's not accidental when organizations like the National Organization for Marriage either ignore these families or trivialize them as "untested social experiments."

However, a recent article in The New York Times is serving NOM and other members of the religious right notice to the fact that they cannot continue to push aside same-sex families. From the article, we learn that not only are same-sex families growing in Southern states, but these families are comprised of people of color:

 . . . child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.

The pattern, identified by Mr. Gates, is also notable because the families in this region defy the stereotype of a mainstream gay America that is white, affluent, urban and living in the Northeast or on the West Coast.

“We’re starting to see that the gay community is very diverse,” said Bob Witeck, chief executive of Witeck-Combs Communications, which helped market the census to gay people. “We’re not all rich white guys.”

Black or Latino gay couples are twice as likely as whites to be raising children, according to Mr. Gates, who used data from a Census Bureau sampling known as the American Community Survey. They are also more likely than their white counterparts to be struggling economically.

Experts offer theories for the pattern. A large number of gay couples, possibly a majority, entered into their current relationship after first having children with partners in heterosexual relationships, Mr. Gates said. That seemed to be the case for many blacks and Latinos in Jacksonville, for whom church disapproval weighed heavily.

“People grew up in church, so a lot of us lived in shame,” said Darlene Maffett, 43, a Jacksonville resident, who had two children in eight years of marriage before coming out in 2002. “What did we do? We wandered around lost. We married men, and then couldn’t understand why every night we had a headache.”

The bottom line is steadily becoming this - in the argument over marriage equality, same-sex couples and the children they are raising cannot be pushed aside or trivialized as "untested social experiments." Whether those against marriage equality and same-sex household like it or not,  there isn't a talking point in existence which will make these families disappear.


Related post:

NOM needs to stop peddling in fantasy and face reality about same-sex families