PJ: Mr. Santorum likes to say how much he is against government control of people's lives but in the same breath he is likely to say that all same-sex unions should be abolished by the government, abortion rights should be banned by the government, and the US government should risk its citizen's lives and spend billions of American taxpayer dollars to go to war against Iran. He is also likely to say that the government should ignore all scientific evidence that points to global warming. The new face of the republican party is not the face of Lincoln, Eisenhower or even Reagan.
The Guardian
Bullets, lube and paper tigers: a beginner's guide to Rick Santorum
The ultra-conservative Republican who came good in Iowa has tried out a variety of discomfiting positions
By Lizzy Davies
Mitt Romney may have – just – emerged as the victor in Tuesday's Republican caucus in Iowa but, for many, the night belonged to his rival Rick Santorum, the most socially conservative of all the Republican candidates and a man who once declared: "I just don't take the pledge. I take the bullets."
Not one to shy away from making his voice heard, the 53-year-old from Winchester, Virginia, has peppered his political career with divisive pronouncements ranging from the hawkish and reactionary to the plain offensive. Here, in a few choice examples, is the world according to Santorum.
Gay marriage
During the Iowa campaign, Santorum explained that not only would he support a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, but he would also be in favour of annulling all currently legal same-sex unions. Not that this should come as much of a surprise: in 2003 the devout Catholic provoked outrage by appearing to compare homosexuality with paedophilia and bestiality. "Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman," he said. "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality." He later insisted that the remark was not homophobic and that he had been speaking from a legal point of view, but the damage had been done. Sex advice columnist Dan Savage launched a readers' competition to find a new definition for "santorum" – and the winner was "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex". Even now, the definition is among the first results for "Santorum" yielded on internet search engines.
Iran
Ever a critic of "Islamic fascist" regimes – as he calls them – Santorum recently yanked his rhetoric on Iran up a gear, declaring that he would bomb the country's nuclear sites if the authorities did not open them up to inspections. "I would be saying to Iran either you open up those facilities, you begin to dismantle them and make them available to inspectors, or we will degrade those facilities through air strikes, and make it very public that we are doing that," Santorum said on the TV programme Meet the Press. Obama's preference for diplomacy risked making the US look like a "paper tiger", he added.
Birth control
Santorum raised eyebrows on Monday when he reiterated his opposition to a supreme court ruling that prevented the state of Connecticut from banning contraception. In an interview with Jake Tapper on ABC News, he said he believed all states should have the right to ban birth control. "It is not a constitutional right," he said. "The state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have." This would appear to tally with earlier statements on contraception: in a 2006 television interview he said that although he had voted for birth control he was "not a believer in birth control". "I don't think it works. I think it's harmful to women," he said. "I think it's harmful to our society to have a society that says that sex outside of marriage is something that should be encouraged or tolerated, particularly among the young."
Climate change
"It's just an excuse for more government control of your life," Santorum declared on Rush Limbaugh's radio show last year. "And I've never been for any scheme or even accepted the junk science behind the whole narrative." For Santorum, it's simple: "I believe the earth gets warmer and I also believe the earth gets cooler. And I think history points out that it does that and that the idea that man, through the production of CO2 — which is a trace gas in the atmosphere, and the man-made part of that trace gas is itself a trace gas — is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd when you consider all the other factors, El Niño, La Niña, sunspots, moisture in the air. There's a variety of factors that contribute to the Earth warming and cooling."
Evolution
According to Santorum, there are "legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution", a position which has led to his firm support for the intelligent design movement, even though that appears to have softened since writing in the Washington Times in 2002 that ID "is a legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in science classes". In 2005 he told NPR that he was "not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science classroom". But he said those "problems and holes" should be taught. Last year, when asked by a rival whether or not he believed in evolution, he reportedly replied that he did, in a "micro sense".
Child abuse
Santorum has repeatedly said that the city of Boston's "liberal culture" played an active role in Catholic child abuse. In 2002, he wrote: "When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the centre of the storm." Santorum did not apologise; three years later, he said he had singled out the city because it was the "epicentre" of the scandal at that time, and, for good measure, added: "I think what I'm saying is that the culture of liberal sexual freedom and the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s had a profound impact on everybody and their sexual mores. It had a profound impact on the church."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/04/history-of-rick-santorum-iowa
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