It seems that almost anyone even remotely interested in the Republican nomination for president this cycle has had their moment in the spotlight. Everyone, that is, except Rick Santorum. Many are beginning to attribute his lack of public attention to his extremist anti-gay rhetoric.
Now to be fair, there are other GOP candidates who also haven't had much of the limelight, namely Utah's Jon Huntsman. But there's a big difference between a virtually unknown late-comer to the race and former Senator Santorum who has been running full-steam since the beginning.
In virtually every other aspect, from health care to the military, Santorum would appear to be the darling of the Tea Party right. So to account for his apparent lack of support for his campaign, we might assume that it would be his overtly aggressive stances against basic civil liberties for LGBT people.
There isn't a single Republican candidate for president whom I would consider a friend of the LGBT community, but there's a bright line between opposing marriage equality and going out of your way to spew vitriolic and false propaganda.
Here are a few Santorum gems:
It seems that the country is finally moving along fast enough that a campaign based squarely and solely on attacks against homosexuality finds itself dead upon arrival. Distortions against any minority community, while perhaps previously effective, no longer carry the social legitimacy they used to -- especially among voters under 40 who are less and less likely to be opposed to fellow citizens simply because of how they were born.
Perhaps other Republicans who are considering future runs for office would do well to take note of the failed "Google Me" Santorum campaign, and the results of a campaign based on hate.
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Michelangelo Signorile: The High Cost of Political Gay-Bashing
It may take another decade, but they will. National opinion polls are changing fast, but national polls on any political issue don't count in this country. But the numbers will eventually spread to rural and/or "RED" areas on the map, too big for Republicans to ignore.
A joke and vilifying precedent for those that follow after him.
That doesn't sit too well with the Tenth Amendment purists.
I disagree, though, that it's even possible to be too anti-gay for a GOP candidacy. In the cases of Bachmann, Perry and Cain, it didn't *HAVE* to be said on a daily basis. The base knows that the anti-gay views of each are strong and have a high priority.
To the extent that his views are too extreme even for the Tea Party, it's less a question of his being anti-gay as it is his clear willingness to impose a lot of heavy penalties on reasonable *heterosexual* choices, too.
It's not his anti-gay trait that's keeping him down. It may be, in part, that he's almost as strongly anti-*STRAIGHT*,