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February 22, 2012 | Dan Rafter

Category: Call It Out, Marriage, Blog, GOP Primary

Former Republican Senator: Santorum is Homophobic

Rick Santorum’s anti-LGBT rhetoric (which is really just one facet of his extremist social conservatism) is no surprise to many, but now even members of his own party are speaking out in growing numbers about the dangers associated with Santorum’s outdated and often bigoted viewpoints.

Huffington Post reports that former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson – a Republican – is calling Santorum rigid and homophobic. Simpson continued: "He said, 'I want a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage,' and they said, 'Well, what about the people who are already married?' And he said, 'Well, they would be nullified.' I mean what is, what's human, what's kind about that? We're all human beings, we all know or love somebody who's gay or lesbian so what the hell is that about? To me it's startling and borders on disgust."

And TPM has the story of how many traditionally conservative news sites and commentators are speaking out against Santorum:

The Drudge Report’s powerful homepage banner spent a full day blasting out a 2008 Santorum speech at Ave Maria University in Florida in which the former Pennsylvania Senator told the crowd that Satan is trying to destroy the US. Drudge sold the story as “developing”, but Right Wing Watch had pretty much the whole thing reported last week.

…Conservative radio talker Laura Ingraham hosted Newt Gingrich on her show Tuesday, and spent much of the eight minute interview berating Santorum for causing the conversation to veer away from economic issues in favor of discussions of pre-natal testing.

“You know, we have candidates out on the campaign trail who are making comments that do give an opening to the media so that they can cover the issues that don’t matter and refrain from covering the issues of, let’s say, high gas prices and so forth,” Ingraham fumed before playing a clip of Santorum talking pre-natal tests on Face The Nation. “If we’re debating about why Amniocentesis is used or not, then we get ourselves into these pickles, and then that becomes the news story,” rather than important issues like what she characterized as Obama’s “lies” about how much land he’s opened up to offshore drilling.

Read the full piece over at TPM.

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