Rick Santorum's repulsive views on social issues came to the forefront in New Hampshire today when students attending a conference confronted Santorum over his outspoken opposition to gay marriage.
Students Jeer Santorum on New Hampshire Blitz
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
Published: January 5, 2012
A midday event in front of a gathering of college students here turned into a testy exchange in which Mr. Santorum compared allowing gay couples to marry to polygamy, apparently equating the two as equally undesirable.
“If you’re not happy unless you’re married to five other people, is that O.K.?” he asked.
The students booed Mr. Santorum during the 10-minute exchange and loudly booed when he left the room. The students were part of College Convention 2012, a forum organized by New England College and open to students from all over the state, regardless of political party.
Dan Savage says this about Santorum
Dan Savage provides perspective on Rick Santorum’s ascent and potential for staying power
OLBERMANN: We assume that. And I think anybody looking at this, and looking at what's ahead in New Hampshire, would assume that, too. I mean, it's a guy who lost his last Senatorial race by 18. And yet, we have this report tonight in Bedford, New Hampshire — he announced that, today, his campaign, in the wake of the Iowa caucus — not only did they declare that a victory by eight votes but they raised a million dollars. Is that — is there something indicative of him having more longevity than we thought he was going to have?
SAVAGE: He will stagger along. Mike Huckabee raised millions of dollars in the wake of his victory in the Iowa caucuses and nobody refers to Mike Huckabee as President Mike Huckabee, because the American public isn't interested in electing a scold, a moralist, a man who — in Rick Santorum's case — says that, as president, he would allow states to ban birth control. Ninety-nine percent of Americans, including overwhelming majorities of Catholic Americans, use birth control.
One of the things I am constantly reminding people about Rick Santorum is that he doesn't have merely an anti-gay agenda. He has an anti-straight agenda too. He is against birth control, he's against abortion, he's against pornography, he's against all sorts of things that straight people use and enjoy frequently, almost once a week at least. And you need to know, heterosexual Americans, that the gay bashing isn't his only hobby. The straight bashing is part and parcel of Rick Santorum, too.
Here in Washington I'm pleased to write our governor introduced a Gay Marrage Bill yesterday. That is the direction this country is moving. Not the direction that Rick Santorum wants to take it, as New Hampshire students so boisterously reminded the candidate today.