Howard Dean on Rick Santorum

Howard Dean, a Democratic candidate for president and the Vermont governor who signed that state's "Civil Unions" law, allowing gay couples to form legal relationships similar to marriage, has posted a statement to his official blog about Rick Santorums comparison of consensual gay sex to adultery, bigamy, incest and polygamy:

In an interview published yesterday with the Associated Press, Rick Santorum, the third highest ranking Republican in the Senate, compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. I am outraged by Senator Santorum's remarks.

That a leader of the Republican Party would make such insensitive and divisive comments --comments that are derogatory and meant to harm an entire group of Americans, their friends and their familie -- is not only outrageous, but deeply offensive.

The silence with which President Bush and the Republican Party leadership have greeted Sen. Santorum's remarks is deafening. It is the same silence that greeted Senator Lott's offensive remarks in December. It is a silence that implicitly condones a policy of domestic divisiveness, a policy that seeks to divide Americans again and again on the basis of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation.

I hope that more will also speak out against Sentorum's comments and make it clear that consenting gay adults have the same right to love whomever they choose as any other couple of consenting adults, and that making public statements otherwise is as bad and as shameful as making other bigoted comments.

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