Son: So anyway, the wedding is going to be on the 15th and we're going on a honeymoo-
Father: Son, I need to tell you something.
Son: What?
Father: I cannot, and will not, have any part of your intended marriage.
Son: Huh? Why not?
Father: It is incompatible with the church's teachings.
Son: What are you talking about?
Father: You are divorced. Under the church's teachings, you are not permitted to remarry.
Son: What do you mean? She left me, Dad!
Father: I've talked to our paster and I've consulted the Bible. When you signed the divorce papers, you consented to a divorce.
Son: But we're not Catholic, divorce is okay, isn't it?
Father: Divorce is fine, remarriage is not.
Son: But Dad, don't you understand? I love her. My first wife left me in pieces, but my fiance has managed to put them all back together again. She's managed to put me back together again.
Father: And I want to be happy for you, but I can't. The Scripture is clear.
Son: What if we get married by the Justice of the Peace?
Father: It doesn't matter. What matters is that when you consumate your marriage, you will be committing sin. Every time you consummate your marriage, you will be committing sin over and over again. As much as I love you, I cannot be a party to it. I can't encourage that.
Son: But I love her! We make each other happy! You understand that you can't stop me from doing this, right?
Father: I do, but refraining from involvement is the only tangible way I can express my disapproval. I cannot approve of this.
Son: So you're not going to have anything to do with my marriage? We're going to have kids, Dad. By doing this, you're not even going to be a part of their life.
Father: If that's your choice, I'll have to live with that, but I have to stand with what I believe is right.

There are two levels to Rick Santorum's recent comments about homosexuality. The first is legal, which I will talk about in a minute. The second is moral, which I've tried my best to illustrate above.

Does the father above care about his son's feelings? Some will say no, but I believe that he does. The father above believes that sin is a degradation of the soul and, despite the fact that his son is in a near-impossible position according to his church's teachings, any other option than remaining celibate the rest of his life is the equivalent of living in sin and will assue that his son will go to Hell. More than anything else, that is what the father seeks to avoid.

It's quite possible that Rick Santorum hates gays.Only he knows for sure. He does hate sin, though, and he equates homosexual activity with sin. By doing so, he leaves homosexuals in the near-impossible position with the only option to avoid a life of sin is celibacy. He may be fine with that because he hates gays or he may be fine with that because he views that as their only way to avoid a life of sin. As I said, only Santorum knows for sure. And, to a degree, that is true of everyone that believes that homosexuality is a sin.

For what it's worth, I don't believe that at all. Nor do I believe that remarriage is a sin. I don't believe that either the son or gays should be forced to live a life of celibacy to be okay in the eyes of God. Rick Santorum and the father are wrong. That being said, it does not follow that Rick Santorum hates gays anymore than it follows that the father must hate his son.

Liberals are deriding the "hate the sin, love the sinner" philosophy by saying that you cannot seperate a man from his sexuality. Depending on whether or not you believe homosexuality is a choice or a predisposition, that may have credence or not with any given person on the subject of homosexuality. The question, though, is whether or not someone can love (or tolerate) someone that they view is perpetually doing wrong. I believe that it is possible, though it puts such people in a rather awkward position, as demonstrated by the stammering of conservatives that believe homosexuality is wrong but do not believe that homosexuals are worthy of hate by virtue of that one sin.

John Scalzi says the following:

Saying that you have no problems with homosexuals but have a problem with homosexual acts is logically equivalent, for example, to saying that you have no problems with Christians but have a problem with them accepting Christ, or that you have no problems with Republicans but have a problem with them registering as Republicans, or that you have no problem with Marines but have a problem with them enlisting (or receiving commissions in the case of officers). Each X' is an affirmative act of association and identification, without which the identification of X cannot exist.

The way to check this is to determine whether the condition of X can exist without X'. So, to go back to our examples -- can you be a Christian without accepting Christ? Pretty much not. Can you be a Republican without registering as a Republican? Not really. Can you be a Marine without enlisting or being commissioned? Can't do it. In each case it's absolutely possible to manifest an outward appearance of each group -- lead a Christly life, vote Republican, or swagger around saying "Semper Fi" to people -- But until you get baptized, register or enlist/are commissioned, you're not one of the members of these groups. The act matters; thereby, having a problem with the act means you have a problem with the condition because the only way to the condition is the act.

I have to disagree. You can love a Christian as a person but hate the fact that they believe what they do. You can love a Marine but hate the fact that their job. You can love a Republican but hate the way that they vote. To put a point on it, if someone were to say that they hate conservatism or Christianity, my immediate assumption would not be that they hate me personally, but rather that they hate that aspect of me. If they were to say that they hate Christians and hate Republicans, that's when it starts to get personal.

Here's the thing, though: Santorum has not said, at any point, that he hates gays. He has compared homosexuality to other acts he views as deviant, but he is comparing acts, not people.

Daniel (who I seem to be picking on today) infers that homosexuality is integral to a homosexual. Maybe so. But if being a Christian is integral to me, and if someone compares Christianity to fascism, they are expressing hatred or disdain to a part of me, not the whole of me. They view a part of me as evil and while that may hurt my feelings, it does not mean that I would be correct in going around saying that they hate all Christians because while they may mean that, they may not mean that at all.

In a way, it breaks down to semantics. However, when it comes to semantics, it's the speaker's intent that is more important than their wordage. So if you don't see a distinction between hating who someone is and hating what they do, you should at least note that they do view one and, in the interest of intellectual honesty, try to see things from their point of view before going around and suggesting that that they hate people solely based on their sexuality. Hating what someone does is not the same as hating who they are. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. For all you know, someone they love is gay and they are in the same awkward position as the father above. Wrong as all heck, but earnest and well-intentioned nonetheless.

So does that mean that those of us that believe that gays should be able to do whatever they like with their lives without being condemned just sit back and say nothing? Absolutely not. They may be well-intentioned, but their still wrong and their ideas still cause harm. But that's not what's happening. Instead, liberals are using this as a battering ram to suggest that Santorum, and thus all those that view homosexuality as a sin, of bigotry on the same level as bigotry based on skin color, which unlike homosexuality or Christianity, is a physical trait and not an act embarked on or a religion embraced. They, as much if not more than Santorum, are the ones making this personal. That's where the comparisons to Trent Lott fail. Blacks are unquestionably and inexplicably born that way. There is no room for debate there. One cannot stop being black if they chose. One can stop being a practicing homosexual, and as out-of-reach as that option seems to be, that's one more option than racial minorities have.

The second way that the comparison to Trent Lott fails is what they actually said. Lott expressed approval for a putrid 1948 platform that Strom Thurmond ascribed to. These were concrete laws used to indignify and oppress blacks for decades. In regards to Santorum's personal view that homosexuality is wrong, that does not necessarily translate into law.

Except that it does, of course, in a way, because he said it in the context of a court decision of a law that is the manifestation of his view.

This brings us to the second level of Santorum's comment: the law.

I believe the Texas sodomy law is wrong on a legal and moral level. I oppose the law and if Democrats were to run on repealing this law and laws like it in 2006, I'd likely vote for them. That is how much I disdain these laws.

That being said, Santorum was arguing about the constitutionality of these laws. He asked, quite plainly, if we say taht there can't be laws against homosexuality because it is a private act in the bedroom, whether that mean that all consensual private acts in the bedroom are therefore inherently justified by the constitution. It's a valid question that makes many liberals, and even libertarian-minded conservatives like myself, uncomfortable. Unfortunately, Santorum may be right. If the constitution protects the rights of gays to have consensual sex, it protects the rights of anyone to do so. I personally don't believe that the constution necessarily protects that (and thus laws could be passed against all non-procreational sex, or for that matter sex altogether) and still technically be constitutional. That being said, I believe that all such laws violent the spirit of freedom and personal liberty set forth in the Constitution. I don't believe there should be laws against adultery, even though I consider that morally wrong in a way that I don't consider homosexuality not to be. In other words, because something is Constitutional that does not make it right. It's a lesson both liberals and conservatives would do well to remember.

So there is room here to debate the issue at hand. There are issues on what degree to which morality can, and should, be legislated. That's where Santorum is most wrong and that's where Democrats should hone their energies. It's also where Republicans like me need to speak up, which I have done and will continue to do. We need to try to convince those that believe homosexuality is morally wrong (which is more people than many liberals would like to believe) that it should still be legal and to remind them that there are those that believe contraception should be illegal and ask them how they would react if that were legislated into reality. Santorum used a few degrees of hyperbole to illustrate his point and we can do the same. Just as there are NAMBLAs on the left that unfortunately discredit the gay rights clause, there are many puritans on the right that would want to legislate so many things into law 95% of Americans would suddenly become criminals. To get the attention of legislators, we only need half of those people.

By making this about Santorum, the debate itself has been sacrificed at the alter of political point-scoring. By making this about the Republican Party, it's made moderate Republicans more defensive rather than giving them to join a common cause that would make the views of Santorum and Nickles obselete.

Or you can just paint all Republicans with a super broad brush, paint everyone with misguided views of homosexuality as haters, and keep potential allies at bay.

Your choice.