Brazenly Dishonest


Despite flirting with deceit in Saturday night's debate in New Hampshire, Rick Santorum continues to display more candor than common sense- which, admittedly, is not difficult.

ABC's George Stephanopoulos raised the issue of contraception- it is, incredibly, an issue with this motley crew of Repub contenders- and Santorum commented

But I do agree with -- obviously we have a right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment. But that’s not what the Griswold decision nor the Roe v. Wade decision were about.
They created through a penumbra of rights a new right to privacy that was not in the Constitution. And what I’ve -- and that’s, again, I sort of agree with Governor Romney’s assessment -- legal assessment, it created a right through boot-strapping, through creating something that wasn’t there. I believe it should be overturned.

Somehow, Rick Santorum simultaneously finds a right to privacy in the Constitution and believes it inapplicable to a woman's reproductive freedom or the freedom to use artificial contraception.      It is an extraordinary conclusion, but perhaps unsurprising when one realizes that even among GOP voters, there is strong support for the idea that Americans deserve some privacy.     Hence:    support for the concept of privacy, just not with abortion or birth control.    Priceless.

Still, Santorum has made it clear that he would be pleased if individual states outlawed contraceptive use, as they were able to do prior to Griswold v. Connecticut. The National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez, however, refuses to believe.     She claims of Santorum
    
In particular, what fuels some of these Internet frenzies is that he told a blogger last October that, as president, he would talk about the “dangers of contraception.” But before you get worried that, if he’s elected, we’re in for a nationwide lecture, when he was pressed on what exactly this means, he made it expressly clear that he believes this is not an issue for the president to take on in any kind of legislation.

That blogger was the conservative Shane Vander Hart, to whom the former Pennsylvania Senator and Virginia resident commented

One of the things I will talk about that no president has talked about before is what I think is the danger of contraception.   The whole sexual libertine idea that many in the Christian faith have said, well, it's ok, contraception's ok.   But it's not ok.

It's a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.     It is supposed to be within marriage.    It is supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal and also unitive but also procreative and that's the perfect way that sexual union should happen.   When you take ay part of that out, we diminish the act.

If you can take one part out, if it's not for the purpose of procreation,t hat's not one of the reasons you diminish this very special bond between men and women.     So why can't you take other parts of it out?     It becomes deconstructed to the point where it's simply pleasure....

Almost as if to disabuse anyone of the notion that it is of mere academic interest or a subject of stimulating discussion, Santorum only last week told ABC News' Jake Tapper

The state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statues they have.

Lopez herself finds Santorum's career "characterized by a mix of approaches, including using the levers of government (emphasis mine) and the powerful platforms available to those in the public square...."    He has publicly argued that states ought to be able to impose contraceptive bans and refers to sex for purposes other than procreation as "license"-  and Lopez believes he won't "take on any kind of legislation."

Notwithstanding his failure to level with the voters about the right to privacy, Rick Santorum has been forthright in stating his opposition to sex for pleasure and prevention of childbirth.   Can't Kathryn Jean Lopez take him at his word?

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