Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Mr. Santorum: Are you an idiot, or do you just play one on television?

Santorum demonstrates health classes after marriage equality.
No doubt Rick Santorum thought speaking at a Christian college made him safe from annoying questions. Jason Kornelias, who just graduated from the college, asked Santorum about his stand on marriage equality for same-sex couples and compared it to the opposition to interracial marriage that restricted the rights of Americans in the past.

Santorum was confused when Kornelias said he couldn't think of any way that equal marriage rights would "be a hit to faith and family in America." Santorum then tried to concoct an answer. He said that if marriage equality was passed then "their sexual activity," we presume same-sex couples, would be seen as "equal." And then it would be taught in the schools.

I was unaware that classes teach sexual activity. I know they teach health and they teach the risks for various sexual practices, or exaggerate them in the case of the abstinence classes the Religious Right pushed through. But they don't teach sexual activity. They describe risks of various sex acts.

Now, I don't know what Mr. Santorum thinks that gay couples do sexually. But, there is nothing that same-sex couples can do sexually that differs from what heterosexuals can do. Every act that gay couples are capable of committing in bed, can be done by heterosexuals as well.

Santorum said, "So, what is going to be taught to our people in health class in our schools?" Answer: nothing that ought not be taught there now. Any health class that covers the risks of heterosexual sexual activity would also cover the risks of homosexual activity. In other words, there is nothing new to teach folks. Oral sex between two men carries the same risks as oral sex between a man and a woman. Anal intercourse works the same in straight couples as in gay couples. There is no "gay" plumbing that somehow offers gay couples options that are closed off to straight couples. The answer is that nothing new needs to be taught. Any basic information on sexual practices and risks would already cover the topic.

Then Santorum worried about "What families look like in America?" Here the danger appears to be that at some point in their life individuals learn that gay people exist and form families. Really? That's a risk. Are we to assume that these people never watch television? Have they no gay relatives, or family friends? Are they in such an insulated bubble that this widely-known fact will harm them? In other words, families will look just like they look now. Like it not, Mr. Santorum, gay people exist and they are committed to one another and they form families. Even worse, for you, most Americans know this.

This fact is in the newspapers. It is on television. It is apparent in grocery stores, schools, and churches across America. Thanks to your harping on the issue, even your followers are fully aware that gay families exist. You told them so! If this information is so damaging, maybe you should have kept your mouth shut. Well, even if it were not damaging, maybe you should have kept your mouth shut.

After the remark of what families look like, Santorum went even more incoherent: "So, you are going to have in our curriculum spread throughout our curriculum worldview that is fundamentally different from what is taught in schools todays? Is that not a consequence of gay marriage?" My question is: Is there a complete sentence? If it is what, does it mean?

This was almost as brilliant as his response on people dying for a lack of health care. He said: "People die in America because people die in America." This is a man incapable of intelligent thought.

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