Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said he could not find an "accommodation" with gay marriage supporters in an interview with the Des Moines Register published Wednesday.
"You know, the gay community and those who support gay rights with respect to marriage in particular -- no, I am not going to find an accommodation with that," said the former Pennsylvania senator.
"People can live the life that they want to live, but now they are talking about changing the laws of the country to reflect a relationship that is not marriage," he said. "Calling it marriage does not make it marriage, and it undermines the institution itself."
Santorum has made far more campaign stops than any other Republican in Iowa, where socially conservative Evangelicals are crucial. He visited all 99 Iowa counties. But a recent Des Moines Register poll shows him at just five percent in the state.
Santorum sparked controversy in 2003 for his comments to the Associated Press on homosexual sex. Referring to a Supreme Court decision striking down state anti-sodomy laws, he said, "And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery." He added, "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be."
In response, gay rights advocate and author Dan Savage launched a website associating his name with a sexual neologism. The site rose near the top of his Google search results, creating a "Google problem" for him.
As a Pennsylvania senator, Santorum sponsored a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The attempt failed in Congress, but he continues to support the measure in his presidential bid. He recently said that he would "die on that hill" opposing same-sex marriage.
Santorum definitively shut the door on compromise, ending his answer the question posed by the Register: "So, no, I can't find an accommodation where there can be none."
