As the “Culture War” rages on, up-and-coming GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum has been hot on the campaign trail, championing “family values.” He’s not talking about our families, is he?
We hope not, because the man gunning for our country’s highest office is misguided, and the logic behind his — and millions of Americans’ — stances on pressing social issues is deeply flawed.
Rooted in “tradition,” the term “family values,” as Santorum and his contemporaries have come to refer to it, marginalizes women, gays the poor and is a cloak for modern-day bigotry. The fact that the man storming up the polls to be president of the United States believes gay relationships “destabilize” society should be raising the reddest of flags.
Santorum believes courts are granting a “sexual liberty” by doing things like allowing gays to marry and making contraceptives easily obtainable, thus overriding the Constitutional right of religious freedom. Social conservatives like Santorum aren’t just parked as society drives forward, they’re driving the wrong way on a one-way street.
If we followed Santorum’s logic, would America still have Jim Crow laws? Would the Civil Rights Act ever have been signed? Or would these have impeded on “traditional” values upon which the Constitution was founded, such as the legality of owning slaves? The Constitution said man has a right to property, right?
Mr. Santorum needs to realize that the game has changed. And it is always changing. The idea of a “traditional family unit” has been completely changed, if it even still exists at all. A family should not be defined by its race, religion or gender of its parents, but by the love and compassion each member of the family unit shares for and with one another. You’re to say that a man who loves another man shouldn’t be allowed to wed because it’s not “traditional?”
As a candidate who peddles small government — and surges in the polls because of it — Santorum is stepping on his own toes. To say that he will make sure the government will restrict people from marrying because of their gender is not small government, but big, bad government.
Speaking of “big” government, he’s not the only one. New Jersey Gov., and GOP poster child, Chris Christie recently vetoed a bill that passed New Jersey legislature that would have allowed same-sex marriage in the state. Christie lobbied to put the issue on the ballot and “let people decide.”
It’s hard to imagine a man as fat as Christie side-stepping the way he did. Christie denied thousands of New Jersey citizens a basic right, and suggesting the human rights’ issue should be up to vote by the people of his state is just a cop-out.
Envisioning any prominent Republican crossing party lines in an election year on such pressing social issues is but a mere pipe dream, but when it comes to granting every American citizen basic human rights, party or not, it’s a no-brainer.