DENVER— The same day the Supreme Court made gay marriage legal in all fifty states, Rick Santorum retorted that the court’s decision was founded on a lie.
“We had a United States Supreme Court say that the only reason you could possibly oppose changes in gay marriage laws in America, is that you hate people of the same sex who want to marry,” Santorum said while speaking at the Western Conservative Summit on Friday evening. “Now that is not true, that’s a decision based on a lie. It’s a decision based on fundamental untruths and yet it is the law of the land.”
The former Pennsylvania senator and 2016 Republican presidential hopeful told the crowd that the foundation of any good society is the family unit, and that his “heart aches tonight because that family unit has further been assaulted” by the Supreme Court decision.
He went on to lament the fact that the decision ensures that fewer children will grow up with a stable father figure in the home, and that many children will become “confused” by what they learn in schools about marriage. Santorum also claimed that because of the legislation “marriage has nothing to do with children anymore.”
A traditional, hardline conservative, he pushed for an amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman while serving in the Senate in 2004. He claims that the bill never passed, because at the time, those in the legislative branch didn’t see the need to ban gay marriage, as states were voting against it.
Santorum criticized Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton for changing her views on gay marriage, since she supported traditional marriage in 2008.
“You can’t just spout the easy stuff,” Santorum said. “Talk about the tough stuff, the stuff that’s not popular, the media loves to just grill you because you have the courage to stand up and fight with more orthodoxy. And do it on the main stage.”
Lamenting that the conservative party has yet to win on these social issues in court, Santorum explained that much of culture is now dictated by the Left, and that there is an assault on conservative values in today’s court.
“What the court says is that if you don’t toe the line you will be viewed as someone who doesn’t respect other civil rights,” Santorum said. “Because you will be a bigot. I know that’s hard to hear, but that’s how the law will look at you now.”
