I was going to follow up on the Santorum stuff, especially since Andrew has gotten himself into such a froth over it (there are more posts on the subject above and below the one I linked), but I don't really have time. Fortunately, Virginia (who has a new car, with which she looks quite pleased) said it much better than I would have anyway.

To reiterate, I don't agree with Santorum, but it's silly to think that his position is beyond the political pale. Such positions are one of the many reasons that I've never been either a conservative, or a Republican.

I would advise folks to read Stanley Kurtz's piece over at NRO, which is great. I'm getting tired of Andrew Sullivan going on and on about this. I'm sorry, but there are more important things than a right to "privacy" or "consensual sodomy" or whatever we want to call what we're arguing about here. Unlike Rand, I am a Republican and a conservative, and I am not about to throw over one of the ablest members of the Senate in order to propitiate Sullivan's ideas about how we all should be pleased as punch he's a homosexual.

Comments like the above are why I usually vote with the aim of splitting the government between parties; both sides are full of those who would destroy this country for the sake of their politicosocial idealism.

Sullivan and his sexual orientation have little to do with the issue of privacy; if the invasion of privacy had to do with ascertaining (say) gun ownership, the sides would abruptly switch.

The pathology at issue isn't sexual -- it's the need to rule everyone's behavior by one's own moral standards. I prefer deadlock to the loss of liberty.

Keep spltting the government between parties and you're going to keep getting what we have in America: a day-in, day-out drift towards the kind of bureaucratic socialism that Europeans have saddled themselves with. When that day comes, you're going to feel pretty unfree. The only people who are destroying this country for the sake of their politco-social ideals are members of the Left.

Do you live in a state with anti-sodomy laws? Probably not. Even if you do, is anyone suggesting that the police expend their scarce resources on a sodomy crack down? No.

I submit that those of you whose response to this flap is "those crazy Republicans keep trying to stick their nose in my business" are the ones who are overreacting and intolerant. I myself have no concern at all that my ability to continue to enage in sodomy with my wife (or my mistress, if I chose to have one) would be restricted in any way by a Republican landslide. Therefore, there are many other issues that are much more important.

My advice: stop being so outraged and indignant.

I am not quite sure why people are whipping themselves up into a frenzy over this. Who cares what the Senator from Pennsylvania thinks about the sodomy laws? He's entitled to his opinion even if some people don't agree with him. He was restating what some on the Supreme Court had asked during oral arguments. THey asked whether if they strike down anti-sodomy laws, that the anti bigamy, polygamy, etc laws would also have to be declared unconstitutional. It was a hypothetical argument and in no way equates sodomy with incest or polygamy, just asks the question whether consenting adults have the right to do whatever they want in their own homes.

ERDV has the right tack on this. The Penn State Senator should be allowed his opinions, and his opponenents should be allowed theirs. I think from a purely legal stand point what he said may be true, and that, I believe, was in fact the point he was trying to make. Senator Rick will not be removed and he should not be.

Lott was and is an idiot, this simply is not the same type situation.

I'm no leftist -- far from it. Neither am I outraged and indignant. I'm just cautious.

Both mainstream parties have agendas I don't, and won't, agree with; left to themselves they'd each make the country over in their own misguided image. The two parties tend to act as a check on each other, and I like it that way.

Santorum's beliefs about sodomy don't worry me; it's his beliefs about the state's "right" to control completely private affairs that bother me, and those beliefs of his extend far beyond sodomy. Santorum is as much an idiot as Lott was, and for very similar reasons: he is attempting to enforce his own antiquated morality upon the whole nation. Those trying to reduce it to a simple argument over "sodomy" would be well advised to read what he actually said and reflect on it.

I am not a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination, but I have always been attracted by the moral consistency of this ideology. Take homosexuality for example. In some ways, *both* sides of the Santorum debate are engaging in a bit of alarmist slippery-slope scaremongering here. Social conservatives feel that if the state is not allowed to police homosexuality, then adultery, bestiality & incest must also be considered fair game. Liberals (and Andrew Sullivan) argue that the slippery slope goes another way: towards theocratic totalitarianism where any kind of non-reproductive sex outside marriage must be rejected. As William Saletan recently pointed out in a series of Slate articles, both sides are tying themselves up in knots when trying to justify why *their* pet cause/phobia deserves special treatment while others (e.g. heterosexual sodomists or polygamists) do not.
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It seems the only logically consistent approach would be to tolerate any kind of sexual behavior as long as it involves consenting adults. OK -- Santorum's philosophy might also "work" but only in a Taliban type medieval totalitarian society. Read Saletan's column [ http://slate.msn.com/id/2081904/ ]: it is quite amusing.

MARCU$