No, Santorum is Not Coming for Your Birth Control February 13, 2012
Posted by geoff in News.trackback
So Drew and Ace are all het up about the infamous Santorum statement to a blogger last October:
One of the things I will talk about that no president has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea
And it goes on in that vein. It gets Ace doing a little speculating:
So when a presidential candidate starts talking about the importance of the president taking the lead on the evils of birth control, yes, I assume he believes this to be within the proper functions of the executive.And I do not think he wants to limit it to “just talking.”
A little research, however, quickly uncovers Santorum’s true position:
Those remarks have been misinterpreted, he said. “I was asked if I believed in it, and I said, ‘No, I’m a Catholic, and I don’t.’ I don’t want the government to fund it through Planned Parenthood, but that’s different than wanting to ban it; the idea I’m coming after your birth control is absurd. I was making a statement about my moral beliefs, but I won’t impose them on anyone else in this case. I don’t think the government should be involved in that. People are free to make their own decisions.’’
This was a controversy when Salon wrote an article back on January 4. The controversy was resolved two days later by the Washington Post. There’s nothing more to see here, folks.
I will say that before I checked the provenance of the quote, I had the same opinion as Drew – Santorum was dead to me. But you never read a Daily Kos article like Drew did and take it as a definitive source.
Never.
In probably unrelated news, NiceDeb gets photographic evidence that John Bolton is a surprisingly small fellow.
When you have axes to grind sometimes you don’t want to check the sources. Nice catch, geoff. I know there are a lot of worries about ‘social cons’ but quite frankly I consider them much less risk because of Establishment Clause constitutional constraints then a RINO.
surprisingly small fellow.
With a Big Brain and Giant Balls of Titanium.
Geoff,
The only problem is I never said he was “coming” for anyone’s birth control. My point is simply that people are going to hear Santorum say things like “the dangers of contraception in this country” and think he’s nuts.
Also, I think it’s safe to say most people aren’t on board with the idea that non-procreative sex is an important “public policy issue”.
Even if you accept Santorum’s statement that he wouldn’t change public policy on contraception (not that he could if he wanted to since there’s zero interest in that), I don’t think people are ready for a President who is going to spend time lecturing the nation on the danger of non-procreative sex.
This wasn’t a one time thing. This is stuff he believes in. That’s fine, it’s traditional morality but it’s not going to be something a candidate can sell in a general election (you can say he won’t feature it but there will be ads and he’ll be asked about it by every reporter).
Drew
The only problem is I never said he was “coming” for anyone’s birth control.
“Rick Santorum is Coming for Your Birth Control” is the title of the Salon article, hence my title. I think I specified that while both of you were “het up,” it was Ace who supposed that Santorum was planning on being an activist about it.
I think that he’s looking at this from the point of view of the multiple roles of the President: Chief Executive, leader of the free world, and moral icon for the country. A lot of people think we don’t need the latter role anymore, but I think that’s because our morality has been degraded by all the poor icons in the past. He believes that role is still important, and intends to set a very high standard for behavior. Too high for my taste, but that’s better than being too low for my taste.
He speaks an uncomfortable truth. Europe bears this out with its disastrous immigration policies and native deficits. Germany did a television special on its growing ‘ghost towns’ of Bavaria, where the people are growing old and dying off, without children to replace them. First, the schools closed, then the towns just die off.
An even worse trend is the supplanting of completely alien cultures into Germany. Native Germans have pulled their children from schools where they are targets of Muslim gangs. The picture is just as grim in Scandinavia and France, and the UK, too.
They showed a really disturbing chart where Germany is a nation of only children. Mothers and fathers are only children. No brothers, or sisters, no uncles, no cousins, no aunts. No second cousins. Just mother, father, grandparents, and maybe, maybe a relic great grandparent. You see what the dangers of recreational sex is doing to Germany. The cradle of the Nazi baby factories has become a sepulcher. Even Freud, secular and atheist as he was, noted the complete decadence of a culture and society where sex was no longer for procreation.
What he should have said is “Yes, I believe that is an important issue; however my actions on that front will be limited to using the bully pulpit and setting a personal example for the rest of the country. Besides, we’re in a financial hole plus facing numerous foreign policy foulups from Team Obama, so anything that distracts me from dealing with budget issues and foreign policy during the next 4 years is going to be put on the back burner.”
He doesn’t have to “deny Christianity 3 times before the cock crows” to keep the moderates happy. He needs to acknowledge his beliefs and stress the fact that we need to focus on the economy and China/nuclear Iran/the Norks/the residue from “the Arab Spring”.
Yep, that would have been a much better answer.
Nicely said, Jewel.
Hmmm. I don’t really think “recreational sex” enabled by birth control is the problem by itself. At the risk of TMI, my marriage has had plenty of birth control, lots of recreational sex, and five pregnancies (one ending in miscarriage). A critical mass making the determination to never (or almost never) get out of recreational sex mode certainly has demographic consequences.
Economics plays a big part in this. People feel a need to delay and delay marriage/kids until they get enough education and get into a job situation where they can have kids–they start later and can afford fewer. Wives just about have to work full-time for the family finances to work, so where do children fit in? I worry (as I suppose parents always have) about the world my children will grow up in.
At the risk of TMI, my marriage has had plenty of birth control, lots of recreational sex, and five pregnancies (one ending in miscarriage)
Slut.
lots of recreational sex
Do you have any videos? That could be a real traffic-winner for IB.
I don’t know. Do people really want to watch my wife count ceiling tiles?
Do people really want to watch my wife count ceiling tiles?
…three….four…five… oh… well, that was nice.
Goodnight dear….
And a Happy Valentine’s Day to you too…
Now Ace is calling Santorum a “flip-flopper” for having taken some time to establish his position on abortion back in 1990. You can read about the evolution of Santorum’s position in the very article he linked, and it doesn’t really smack of flip-flopping. Not to mention that all the flipping and flopping is over 20 years old.
I don’t really have a preference of Romney vs. Santorum, but I think conservatives need to be much more careful about using liberal talking points when discussing our candidates.
Do people really want to watch my wife count ceiling tiles?
Oh yeah. She just has to moan a little while she counts. We can own the intertubes in the “Mormon Bad Girls” porn category (which does not currently exist, trust me). This site could make some money.
I need to stop commenting on this thread. If evil con carne shows up he’s going to get a bad case of the skeevies.
If evil con carne shows up he’s going to get a bad case of the skeevies.
Every boy has that difficult moment when they realize that their mother must have had sex, and it might have been rough and nasty.
Except for the Virgin Mary, of course.
And my Mom.
*remembers the day when he walked in on his parents in an uncomfortable position*
*remembers the day when he walked in on his parents in an uncomfortable position*
Were your shoes too small? Is that what caused your uncomfortable position?
I blame your parents.
“I don’t really have a preference of Romney vs. Santorum, but I think conservatives need to be much more careful about using liberal talking points when discussing our candidates.”
True dat. I thought the exact same thing when Santorum and Gingrich used Occupy rhetoric to attack Romney’s Bain Capital background. And from Ace & Drew’s point of view, Santorum is giving ammunition to the left with his overemphasis on these social issues. Their point is that OF COURSE the left is going to lie about Santorum’s record: What he needs to do is to stop helping them do this.
Are they right? Sure. Do they simultaneously slightly disregard the SoCon point of view? I’ll concede that. But when you put it all together, you have to admit that they’re correct. Santorum doesn’t need to deny Social Conservatism to win the moderates. He just needs to reiterate that our current non-SoCon troubles should have Priority #1 in the next administration.