More on Santorum

More on Santorum

P. Schultz

February 6, 2012

Once again, having taken up the subject of Rick Santorum with a friend, he, Santorum, deserves more attention. The complaint was made that Santorum’s views on what we label “homosexuality” have led to his being “victimized” by means of derision. Of course, this is, to the extent true, unfortunate and needs correction.

However, because it does not involve derision, I stand by my earlier argument that Santorum, by seeming to address only the question of gay and lesbian marriage, avoids the real question, viz., whether those who are gay or lesbian can be fully virtuous human beings.  However, worse than this is that Santorum does not really avoid this question but implies, without saying so, a negative answer to this question. When Santorum and others, like Bill Bennett, argue that marriage, traditional marriage, lies at the foundation of Western – and, hence, superior – Civilization and that gay and lesbian marriage would undermine that institution and, hence, that civilization, they are saying that gays and lesbians are subversives. So, to satisfy their sexual desires, the implication is, they are willing to undermine the achievement that is Western Civilization. They are subversives, selfish and sexually unrestrained subversives.

Interestingly, this friend agrees with my arguments against Santorum’s imperialism and sees that it is logically inconsistent with Santorum’s “pro-life” pronouncements on the issue of abortion and euthanasia. However, Santorum’s imperialism and his rejection of the legitimacy of gays and lesbians are of a piece. That is, Santorum, like many others, is imperialistic because he perceives it to be “manly” and, hence, of a piece with “traditional morality” as Santorum understands it.  Traditional morality is predominantly “masculine,” and anything that threatens masculinity threatens traditional morality – which like traditional marriage lies at the base of Western Civilization. As a result, Santorum dislikes feminism and the feminization of society, which latter is advanced by the legitimation of gays and lesbians. Gays are not “real men,” that is, they are not the kind of men who made and who will defend and perpetuate Western Civilization. Legitimation of gays then leaves us open to being destroyed by other “real men,” say men like Islamic fundamentalists who put no store in either feminism or homosexuality. It is interesting, as an aside, that those who see the West as having “invited” Islamic fundamentalists to attack us by seeming weak or “feminized,” espouse a view of virtue that reflects the view of virtue espoused by these fundamentalists. But, more to the point here, Santorum’s imperialism and his rejection of the legitimacy of gays and lesbians fit together nicely as for him imperialism is part and parcel of our traditional, masculine morality, a morality that is threatened by those who are not “real men.” So just as we must embrace war to prove we are "real men," so too we must not kowtow to those who are not "real men," the gays.