And now it's Rick Santorum

After taking a break last week (I had something like three million papers to grade) from writing my blog, I feel I must return to my first love: politics.  Yes, there are many more local things I could discuss: trimesters, Jo's awesome basketball season, Iowa's apparent lack of a winter--but I just can't stop myself from writing about the new leader in the Republican presidential race:  Rick Santorum.  This guy is a serious nutcase and right now, he's leading serious contender Mitt Romney and political heavyweight Newt Gingrich.  And Ron Paul.

First off, he's a heavy-duty homophobe. I'm not talking your garden variety "let's leave the Lutheran Church" homophobe--I'm talking verging on mental illness homophobe.  During his 99-country tour of Iowa, Santorum frequently compared same-sex relationships to inanimate objects like trees, basketballs, beer, and paper towels and even tried to blame the economic crisis on gay people. As Santorum explained back in August, religious people have a constitutional right to discriminate against gays: “We have a right the Constitution of religious liberty but now the courts have created a super-right that’s above a right that’s actually in the Constitution, and that’s of sexual liberty. And I think that’s a wrong, that’s a destructive element.”  I don't know about you, but I wouldn't even know how to go about having sex with a paper towel.  Anyone that can imagine that is a little unhinged.


Rick actually spends quite a bit of time talking about sex.   He thinks contraception is "dangerous" and that perhaps states should ban it.   I'll just let him say it himself:  "That's the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act. And if you can take one part out that's not for purposes of procreation, that's not one of the reasons, then you diminish this very special bond between men and women, so why can't you take other parts of that out? And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it's simply pleasure. And that's certainly a part of it--and it's an important part of it, don't get me wrong--but there's a lot of things we do for pleasure, and this is special, and it needs to be seen as special. Again, I know most presidents don't talk about those things, and maybe people don't want us to talk about those things, but I think it's important that you are who you are. I'm not running for preacher."

Okay, so let me get this straight.  Rick Santorum thinks the president should decide what is "special," particularly in regards to sexual things.    And if a couple isn't having sex for procreation, it loses it's "specialness."  So, post-menupausal and sterile women should just give up the ghost.  Oh yeah, and he's not running for preacher, whatever that means.  So sayeth the man that wants to be president.

The fact that this man is even taken seriously says a lot about the electorate.   In the fight for "who can be the most conservative" he surely wins.  Well, I guess that something.  Not something substantive, educated, or sane--but something.