The Santorum controversy. (The Last Word).

Anyone active in the pro-life movement has heard of Senator Rick Santorum. The telegenic, 45-year-old Pennsylvanian is the third most powerful Republican in the Senate, and he has consistently championed issues related to the sanctity of life and the family.

Many conservative pro-lifers and others were attracted to Rick Santorum when he engaged in a lively exchange with femi-leftist Senator Barbara Boxer, during the October 20, 1999 Senate floor debate on partial-birth abortion. William Norman Grigg's report, "The Roe Revolution," in THE NEW AMERICAN for January 17, 2000 captured the exasperated state to which Santorum drove the pro-abortion Boxer:

"I'm not answering these questions!" sputtered Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). "I am not answering these questions!" Boxer had been driven into impotent rage by the gentle but persistent questioning of Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) regarding her support for the form of infanticide commonly called "partial-birth abortion." Santorum, the chief sponsor of a measure intended to ban the gruesome practice, wanted Boxer to examine this question: At what point does a child acquire the right to life?

But of late, Senator Santorum has been in the headlines. The uproar stemmed from an Apr11 21st AP article, which quoted Mr. Santorum's views on a Supreme Court challenge to a Texas law banning sodomy. "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 incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything," he said, using the term "consensual" to refer to gays. He added, "All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family."

"Where's the controversy?" you may ask. Those who grew to maturity before the era of "political correctness," in particular, may scratch their heads in wonderment that anyone could take offense at Santorum's sensible statement. In case you need a reminder that we live in "different" times, however, bear in mind that the popular ABC-TV soap opera All My Children featured TV's first on-screen lesbian kiss on April 22nd. As the incomparable lyricist Cole Porter wrote in his 1934 song, "Anything Goes": "The world has gone mad today, And good's bad today, And black's white today, And day's night today...."

Former Vermont governor and presidential hopeful John Dean typified the Democrats' reaction to Santorum's comments:

In an interview published yesterday with the Associated Press, Rick Santorum, the third highest ranking Republican in the Senate, compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. I am outraged by Senator Santorum's remarks.

That a leader of the Republican Party would make such insensitive and divisive comments -- comments that are derogatory and meant to harm an entire group of Americans, their friends and their families -- is not only outrageous, but deeply offensive....

I urge all Americans, and members of both parties, to join me in condemning Sen. Santorum's remarks. They are unacceptable, and silence is an unacceptable response. By standing up against such divisive rhetoric -- whether one is gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight -- we can begin to achieve the American ideal of equal rights for all people.

An April 25th AP report noted: "Several of Dean's rivals for the Democratic nomination also are speaking out in support of increased rights and acceptance of gays. But many Republicans say strong support for gays will backfire in the general election and help President Bush win more conservative and southern states."

Which should tell us something. As much as we applaud Senator Santorum's defense of traditional family values, we must not let the sheepdogs of partisan politics or direct-mail marketing herd us into a corral where we may not like the company of the other sheep! The agenda of the Republican Party, or even "Beltway conservative" organizations, is not always your agenda. (Several such groups are sending e-mails urging you to "sign a petition" or "send an e-mail" in support of Senator Santorum. However, a little reading between the lines shows that these e-petitions are really "chain letters" designed to build up the groups' own databases.)

Support Senator Santorum in his stand against the militant homosexual lobby's quest for preferential, rather than equal, "rights"? By all means, especially if you live in Pennsylvania. But don't be tricked into signing on as a cheerleader for the Bush administration, with its many deficiencies. And if you write to the senator (who scored a "74" on THE NEW AMERICAN'S last "Conservative Index"), encourage him to follow the constitutionalist position (rather than the Bush administration position) on issues such the national debt limit increase. A good parent encourages his "C" student to try for straight "A"s!