Who would you most NOT want to see...

[Erc]

I'm no Santorum fan, but let me explain Santorum's position in re the Texas anti-sodomy laws, etc.


As far as I know, Santorum doesn't support Texas anti-sodomy laws (ie he doesn't generally want to ban sodomy, as far as I know, and if he does...well I've never seen him state it outright).

Santorum is not arguing for the moral validity of the sodomy laws (which I think he knows are pretty absurd and unenforceable)...he is arguing that they are constitutional (ie that Lawrence v. Texas is a bad ruling).  People so often confuse constitutional matters and matters of politics, ideology, etc.  Yes, the line is a bit thin in places, but there is a distinction between pure legal matters and politics.

Santorum takes the position that the court's ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut is a bad ruling.  For those of you not familiar with Griswold (which, in my view, is a much, much more significant case in American judicial precedent than Roe, which is simply a logical extension of Griswold), the case dealt with an equally absurd statute--a law against any group promoting or facilitating contraceptive services in the state of Connecticut. 

The Supreme Court opined in Griswold that there is an implicit right to privacy contained within the Bill of Rights, which the Connecticut statute (by way of the due process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment) violated.  Santorum believes that this conclusion of the Supreme Court is totally unfounded in reality.  Now, I don't think Santorum wants to ban contraceptives anytime soon (although his gaggle of kids suggests that his household has not seen widespread use of them)--he does not believe that Connecticut should have had the ban, but believes that Connecticut had the right to do so.  In this, he agrees with Justice Stewart, dissenting:

"But we are not asked in this case to say whether we think this law is unwise, or even asinine. We are asked to hold that it violates the United States Constitution. And that I cannot do."

Just because a law is Constitutional does not mean it is wise.  Just because a law is unwise does not mean it is Constitutional.