Back in 2003, not long before the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing sodomy in 13 states in the Lawrence v. Texas decision, then-Sen. Rick Santorum made his infamous statement that if the court struck down such laws, it would ultimately destroy marriage and the family because then “you have the right to anything,” including pedophilia and “man on dog” relationships:
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. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does … [I]t destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that’s antithetical to strong healthy families. Whether it’s polygamy, whether it’s adultery, where it’s sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family … 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.
On the day that the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide last month, Santorum was speaking at the Western Conservative Summit in Colorado, where he held a press conference to provide his thoughts on the ruling. State Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt was on hand for the Q&A and today posted footage of it on his “Pray In Jesus Name” program.
The very first question Santorum received linked the gay marriage decision back to his infamous “man on dog” comment, which prompted Santorum to declare that exactly what he had predicted has now come true.
“What I say is if you have the right to consensual sexual activity,” he said, “then it opens the door to a variety of different things. And this ruling did it. This ruling followed up with what I said would happen if the Supreme Court ruled the way it did and the Supreme Court has followed their line of reasoning that I identified very early on that if consensual sexual activity is a constitutional right, then we have to, it leads logically, as you saw in the court’s opinion, that all things, that all the rights come with that.”
When he was asked if the Supreme Court’s decision now opened the door to polygamy, Santorum said that he couldn’t see any legal basis for banning it because the court “has certainly opened the door for a variety of other things that are going to happen.”
