January 5, 2012 6:57 PM

Santorum raises polygamy in defending stand against gay marriage

By
Naureen Khan
Topics
Campaign 2012

Republican presidential candidate former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks during a campaign stop with college students, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012, in Concord, N.H.

(Credit: AP Photo/Jim Cole)
CONCORD, N.H. - In a spirited debate with gay rights supporters, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday defended his opposition to liberalizing marriage laws by raising the specter of polygamy. "What about three men?" he asked.

Santorum encouraged the debate with several audience members who attended his address at a college convention sponsored by New England College. The audience of about 200 people included several supporters of Santorum's rival, libertarian Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Some booed Santorum when he left the stage

One audience member, a college-aged man, asked Santorum how gay marriage affected him personally. A young woman asked him to justify his embrace of constitutional freedoms such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness while at the same time denying the right for gay couples to marry. They were the sort of in-your-face questions that New Hampshire town hall meetings are known for.

"Who's attempting to change the law?" Santorum replied. He sharply challenged the man to defend his support of gay marriage. Several audience members shouted answers in support of the questioner.

"Oh, no," Santorum said. "We're not going to shout." He admonished the crowd to raise their hands before speaking. Heeding his request, a gay marriage supporter suggested that Santorum is a hypocrite for restricting the right to marry while espousing constitutional rights to liberty, freedom and happiness.

"Are we saying that everybody should have the right to marry?" Santorum said, issuing a challenge to his audience.

"Yes!" several shouted.

Santorum: "So anyone can marry anyone else?"

"Yes!"

Santorum: "So anybody can marry multiple people?"

Crowd members grumbled and shouted over each other. Santorum called for order again - "OK, maybe we can't do this," he said. "We're going to have a civil discussion or move on to another question."

The crowd quieted and one woman spoke for the pro-gay marriage faction by saying that married couples don't harm anybody.

Replied Santorum: "What about three men?" He was being provocative and might not have expected the answer he got.

"Go for it," she said. Once he realized that she was condoning polygamy among same-sex couples, Santorum sarcastically framed the pro-gay marriage argument: Anybody, he said, can marry as many people as they want. The gay rights supporters stood and applauded Santorum, apparently mocking him.

He moved on gracefully and without objection from the crowd after restating his view that God created men and women with the specific purpose to reproduce and marry. "I believe God made man that way," he said.

Much later in the event, after taking several question unrelated to gay marriage, Santorum field one more on the topic. He briefly answered it and, thanking the audience for inviting him, ended the 70-minute appearance.

As he walked from the lectern to sign a convention banner, several crowed members booed - marring what was otherwise a mostly civil debate between the candidate and the crowd.


  • Naureen Khan

    Naureen Khan covers the 2012 presidential campaign for CBS News and National Journal.

Add a Comment See all 121 Comments
by LosAngelesCA January 26, 2012 1:29 PM EST
I do not support gay marriage or Santorum.

Santorum is absolutely, positively correct that endorsing gay marriage will lead to laws accepting polygamy and everything else.

I voted for Prop 8 and fully suspect the 9th Circuit to vacate the District Court's decision because the feds have no business getting involved in marriage laws DECIDED BY THE STATES.

Particularly when certain states have agreed to gay marriage in their state. The courts can not have it both ways. The courts can not demand that states which oppose gay marriage implement gay marriage when other states have freely chosen that law for their state. That is not how it works in this country.

Frankly, those states did not think this through. Right after the District Court ruled against Prop 8, polygamists in Utah filed suit saying their rights were discriminated against.

Bottom line is that the polygamists have a point.
Reply to this comment
by roots4blackhawks January 7, 2012 8:13 PM EST
What I find most alarming is the national obsession that has developed over the taunts and cry-baby demands of a micro-minority that defines itself by its sexual lifestyle choice. Indeed, they are not born that way, so they are merely a self-defined demographic. So, life style choices are now entitled to special legal protections? Also, even though gay marriage is opposed by 44 US states, every African/Asian/Pacific nation, most every continent on the planet, why is it suddenly "acceptable" and all who oppose it "bigots?" Talk about the 2% of crazies calling the rest of us insane. Only a hyper-vocal group of degenerates - and the stupid college punks who buy their BS - say it is right. We are now in a moral free-fall, with every aberration and desire becoming a civil liberties issue rather an exploration of right or wrong. Give Santorum credit. He took on the issue intelligently and effectively. The only evidence of "bigotry" I saw was from the immature college vermin who - like most radical demagogues - intolerantly assailed him for his views (without addressing his very rational arguments). Tolerance is a two-way street. It's too bad that the NH College liberals haven't figured that out yet.
Reply to this comment
by SJames6621 January 7, 2012 10:28 PM EST
there you go blaming the gays for being gay. You must be listening to one of the fake psych groups set up by the FRC etc.

BTW almost every word you say shows what you are to any intelligent and not brainwashed person.

Thaks for calling my kid who goes to college in HH as vermin

Go look in the mirror.
by ge556 January 7, 2012 10:52 PM EST
Miscegenation used to be banned. People thought it was clearly immoral. Times change, fortunately. Bigotry against black people is no longer acceptable. Bigotry against gays is on its way out.
See all 5 Replies
by cbslucas January 7, 2012 8:41 AM EST
Why doesn't he step up to really protecting the family, living up to his Catholic beliefs, and propose to eliminate divorce. When over 50% of marriages end in divorce, leaving behind one parent families, that is the real threat to families, not 2 men or women loving each other.
Reply to this comment
by SJames6621 January 7, 2012 10:34 PM EST
Depends how brainwashed he is by his church.

Whose religious freedom (THEIR LATEST MOTTO) was shown in the 1930s in Germany by the web site http://nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm

Q1 - who accused the Jews of Deicide and the blood libel biz in Europe for a thousand years?

Q2 who was born and baptised catholic in very catholic Austria in `1888

Who wrote Mein Kampf where he showed his hatred of the Jews growing up in very catholic Austria in 1888.

What pope UNExcommunciated Bishop Willaimson, a holocaust denier- Minimizer in 2009 and in what country and what era did he grow up
by cbslucas January 7, 2012 8:37 AM EST
Is Santorum talking about marriage between 3 men, or is he talking about MORMONS and Romney!
Reply to this comment
by obwan222 January 6, 2012 6:22 PM EST
[Santorum: Sodomy laws properly exist to prevent acts which "undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family"...]

Well, at least that's one thing that Santorum and Ron Paul agree on.

Ron Paul: "The [Supreme] Court determined that Texas had no right to establish its own standards for private sexual conduct, because gay sodomy is somehow protected under the 14th amendment 'right to privacy.' Ridiculous as sodomy laws may be, there clearly is no right to privacy nor sodomy found anywhere in the Constitution. There are, however, states' rights - rights plainly affirmed in the Ninth and Tenth amendments. Under those amendments, the State of Texas has the right to decide for itself how to regulate social matters like sex..."

So be clear, these members of the "freedom" party (yeah, right) think that states should be allowed to control your conduct in the bedroom with other consenting adults, including your spouse.

So Santorum and Ron Paul want the govt in your life to a shameful degree.
Reply to this comment
by LaureenHolt January 6, 2012 7:54 PM EST
There IS no "right" to "privacy" nor sodomy in the US Constitution, unless you ead better than I do, & have found it in it SOMEWHERE....
by cbslucas January 7, 2012 8:35 AM EST
Sodomy laws apply to both straight and gay relationships. I don't think heterosexuals would be so against this if they knew they could be put in jail on their next BJ.
by awenshok January 6, 2012 1:18 PM EST
Surprise, surprise...after NOT demeaning blacks, St. Orum attacks gays...pretty much got the true RepubliKKKan credentials, yes? Watch the cash roll in -- after all, hate mail for a RepubliKKkan KKkandidate is called a political contribution.
Yep,he's the one, for sure.
Reply to this comment
by LaureenHolt January 6, 2012 8:00 PM EST
WHAT-EVERRRRR!
by staycalm January 6, 2012 12:35 PM EST
I never liked Santorum until I saw him with those college students. He was calm, rational and in control. Certain conditions have always defined marriage: number (two), gender (opposite), species (human) and age (16 or 18 usually). Why does it make sense to lift one of the conditions and not the other three? You may think you can't marry your dog because you can't communicate but what if you married a deaf, dumb and blind person? At least your dog can communicate his love for you with those big brown eyes and his desire to please you...that's more than I get from my husband. And who says you can't love more than one person? Ask any bisexual. Why shouldn't the whole group be able to marry? What about age? Kids as young as 11 or 12 are being tried as adults in the courts and made to suffer adult sentences. If they're old enough to go to jail for life, aren't they old enough to marry? All those who love don't necessarily need or want to get married. Why? Because marriage is so much more than love. Marriage is a legally binding commitment and the unit becomes a legally functioning member of society at large. I agree with Santorum that the burden of proof and persuasion falls on those who want to change the law. I need to be shown how gay marriage benefits society as a whole and not just 3% of it...I have not yet been convinced.
Reply to this comment
by DJC88 January 6, 2012 1:13 PM EST
Thank you for a surpisingly rational comment on this emotion-driven issue. If anything, Santorum is understating the case. Historically, polygamy has much more anthropological pedigree than same-sex marriage. It is an irrational aesthetic choice of our myopic culture to legalize one and not the other. Once you abolish the idea that sexual distinction is essential to marriage, there is no longer anything significant about the number "two". Of course, the audience, being a bunch of sexual libertines, would deregulate all marriage, though they tend to advocate strong government intervention in other matters. The common denominator is a sense of entitlement.
by hardsnow January 6, 2012 1:51 PM EST
"...I need to be shown how gay marriage benefits society as a whole and not just 3% of it...I have not yet been convinced..."

Why does greater society as a whole have to benefit in order to change laws designed to improve the lot of a minority?

I'm sure that women in the early 20th century wouldn't have benefited from suffrage if that attitude had prevailed? Nor pre-civil war slaves either, for that matter. This is a civil rights issue, really; just like the others in our history.

Remember that we live in a constitutional republic; this was established to protect the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority.
by GeneralJDavis January 6, 2012 12:28 PM EST
Let's be consistent. Long ago the Supreme Court rewrote the guarantee of "free exercise of religion" to mean that people could believe what they wanted but weren't free to act on it, and ever since the government has been writing laws that restrict non-christian regions. The laws against polygamy are religious laws, essentially, so why not write laws against same-sex marriage? The principle is the same.
Reply to this comment
by Robert_Rogers January 6, 2012 12:27 PM EST
Why shouldn't adults be allowed to enter into a consensual plural marriage arraignment?

Of course one of the restrictions that has kept Muslims from immigrating to the US is polygamy.

I guess if they open the door to gay marriage, then it is only just to allow polygamy to be legally recognized as well, no matter whether or not those who practice it are Fundamentalist Mormons or Fundamentalist Muslims.
Reply to this comment
by mworley88 January 6, 2012 12:19 PM EST
Marriage is designed, in part, to discourage out-of-wedlock pregnancy (leading to single parents). Gay marriage does nothing to help that and begins changing the purpose. Also, no one has bothered to answer Rick's question with a principle: Why not 3? Sure, it was designed for 2, but it was also designed to be 1 man, 1 woman
Reply to this comment
by phil_debowl January 6, 2012 12:55 PM EST
If that's your enlargement, then why wouldn't the same argument be used about anyone marrying anyone, i.e. man marrying woman. That's legal without polygamy being legal. How is the argument changed just from changing the sex of the partnership? I'll tell you how...It's changed because your little mind isn't used to dealing with it. I believe that EXACT argument was used when blacks and whites started marrying! Are those the times and the type of people you associate with? It amazes me how a little directed fear can make people so scared of things they aren't used to. So scared as to deny other people the same rights they enjoy. And the sad thing is in your closed, feeble mind, you don't even recognize it, nor would ever allow yourself to recognize it. Thankfully people like you make up just a percentage of the population. Otherwise we'd all be walking around in sandals being pawns of rich people killing each other over fables of fake people in the sky....oh wait....that's right, we wear Nike's now.
by phil_debowl January 6, 2012 1:00 PM EST
Kyron, exactly, what is the state doing regulation what goes on between consenting adults in the first place...oh yeah, people like you mworley, who will constantly yell about freedom and small government, until some crazy religious idea is involved. HYPOCRITE!!!
See all 121 Comments
.

Follow Political Hotsheet

Scroll Left
Scroll Right More »
CBS News on Facebook
  • Building You a Better Morning

  • CBS This Morning

    "CBS This Morning," anchored by Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Erica Hill, airs weekdays from 7 to 9 a.m. ET and at the same time in other time zones.
    Learn more...