Does anyone here believe that a man is going to win the presidency in 2012 by telling the electorate that he wants the Supreme Court to overrule Griswold and Eisenstadt and leave birth control up to hostile anti-women states? Does anyone believe a candidate is going to win the presidency by avoiding discussions of foreign and domestic policy and instead simply saying that the president's "theology" is bad and that Protestants are a dying breed and overtaken with satanism? Do you think his public persona that has been carefully built over his long political career is one that specifically invokes anti-LGBT sentiment that is the same type of terrorism leveled against our community by the worst horrific zealots on accident? Do you think his focus on philosophical issues relating to his version of morality instead of concrete policy initiatives is because he's just too stupid to come up with policies, or can you see that it is part of his strategy reason for putting himself on the national stage?
Rick Santorum is not going to be President of the United States and he was never trying to be. If he were he would be lying like Romney is and desperately attempting to appear more sane for the cameras. He is saying and doing these things because he's trying to send a message. These aren't dog whistles; they are screams.
Here's what's happening: the culture war is pretty much over. Our side won. Proposition 8 was a pyrrhic victory for these people, showing the entire country the utter foolishness of anti-LGBT legislation and the inhumanity of taking away marriage from a group of people who have done everything we could have possibly done to earn the right to be viewed as humans just like anyone else. Once Proposition 8 was passed into law and people began to witness the fallout and once our sadness and desperation and humanity were shown to the country, there was nothing to keep the culture war alive. What could they say? "Well yeah, we're pretty terrible and inhumane and probably killing people, and we've just taken marriage away from people who have previously had it for no good reason, but we really really do have the only moral position in this argument"?
No.
As soon as lack of marriage rights for gay Americans was equated with hate (or "H8" as the "No H8" campaign says) we won. It does matter that we've lost battles along the way and that amendments and anti-LGBT bills have been passed; that's important, but that's part of the last bit of scrambling the radical right is trying to do to appear relevant.
This is where Rick Santorum's "strategy" enters the picture. He's very upset. Frantic, even. He knows everything is over and he knows fairly soon our side will see nothing but victories, increasing poll favorability numbers and he knows we will be able to stop fighting. He's in panic mode. The far right is in panic mode. They wanted to win so badly and now it's just over and the people they were trying to keep down feel all empowered.
So they're doing scorched-earth.
They're throwing everything out there, using every dirty, underhanded thing they can come up with. They're passing every stupid law, proposing all new bans, they're even medically raping women in Virginia. They're leaving behind a whole slew of criminalized people, of pain, of carnage because they don't care. They only care about winning. They figure, fuck this place, let's tear it down. If we can't win we're gonna off as many people from their side as possible and we're gonna burn their places down and terrorize and hurt and destroy their lives because fuck it we're fucking finished.
They are out of control. Their side is no longer operating on the level of a side that is trying to win an election. They are trying to end us. This is not about voting. This is about flaming the fuck out. They have nothing left, so why not drive some more kids into suicide? Why not send out signals to hate groups and get them to join in this fight that's fading out? They have nothing to lose. They don't have a presidency to lose because that was never in play. They can't win anything on their beliefs anymore. They are operating in death. They are terrorists.
Can't we just let them flame out on their own?
Some updates this morning, since I think a lot of people misread me (which probably reflects on me since it was so many people:)
1. I'm trying to say that Rick Santorum is a true believer in everything he says and does, and is very dangerous. He is trying to send a very loud and very scary message. That's his ultimate goal.
2. I don't think he is running to win the presidency, which is not to say the American people won't put him there because people aren't always smart.
3. Rick Santorum is terrifying and needs to be off the national stage. He doesn't need a platform. He doesn't need anyone cheering him on. Anyone who somehow, after the past few days, thinks this is in support of Operation Hilarity or Santorum's candidacy seriously misread me and my purpose on this site. This is what I think OH will do to my area of rural south Alabama.
4. I don't think this is about D versus R but rather that Rick Santorum himself is incredibly dangerous. Making it about just a typical fight sort of dismisses him as just some person in this fight when he's actually the David Duke of the anti-LGBT movement.
I'm confused by the comments and how badly I was misread so I wanted to clarify.
Updated again to fix what I think is poor wording
