Rick Santorum's Views On Homosexuality - 2003 Interview

2003 Interview

In the interview by Associated Press reporter Lara Jakes Jordan, when asked for his position on the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, Santorum said that the scandal involved priests and post-pubescent men in "a basic homosexual relationship" (rather than child sexual abuse), which led the interviewer to ask if homosexuality should be outlawed.

Santorum then brought up the then-pending U.S. Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, which challenged a Texas sodomy law, and said that "he did not have a problem with homosexuals, but a problem with homosexual acts", "the right to privacy doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution", and "sodomy laws properly exist to prevent acts which undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family."

When Jordan asked "Okay, without being too gory or graphic, so if somebody is homosexual, you would argue that they should not have sex?" Santorum stated:

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. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality.

The AP also quoted Santorum as saying, "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." and "Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, whether it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family."

When allegations of bias were leveled against Jordan because she is married to a Democratic strategist, she made a recording of the interview available. The AP released a transcript it described as "an unedited section" of the interview on April 23.