Ex-senator Rick Santorum on Iowa Press: Gay marriage means 'lower standard of living and less free and prosperous country'

In an interview by Iowa Press to be broadcast tomorrow at 7:30 pm former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum was interviewed at length about same sex marriage and the standoff between Gov. Walker of Wisconsin and state employees. Here are some excerpts from the transcript.

ON DOMA

...this was a way for the federal government to preserve the sovereignty of the states.  And it was a way of being sort of neutral on the issue of marriage instead of favoring one side over the other, let the people decide.  And what President Obama has done is in a two year period of time he went from finding this law to be perfectly fine and constitutional to finding it to be somehow unconstitutional even though, to my knowledge, the language of the Constitution hasn't changed any in the last two years, yet his interpretation of it has.  And I think it is driven by politics, not by any real change in the Constitution and its meaning.

Glover: And you issued a statement harshly critical of the President at the time that he acted.  But there has been sort of a strange silence from a lot of potential republican presidential candidates.  I haven't heard much from a lot of them.  Why not?  Why haven't I heard more?

Santorum: Look, I mean, all I can say is that if we do not, as a party and as a people, stand behind the institution of marriage and understand its essential role as the glue that holds the family together, the family, the building block of society, the first economy, the first school, the first place where children's character is formed we are going to destine our children and destine the future of this country for a lower standard of living and less free and prosperous country.

Glover: Should we hear more from the other potential candidates?  Would you ask them to address the issue?

Santorum: ...In the Iowa elections, as you know, there were three justices up for, um, retention, I'm sorry, couldn't find the word, thank you, Dean, up for retention in the last election and of the potential republican candidates I was the only one that came into the state, jumped on the judge bus, talked about the issue of having people decide what marriage laws should be, not courts and no other republican potential nominee or candidate came in to do the same.  So, I think it shows that there are some people who are willing to stand up and fight for the family and others who would rather, to use the comment of one potential candidate, call a truce on these things.  Well, a truce, in this case, means ceding ground to the other side.

Henderson: How do you think this issue will play out in the Iowa caucus campaign in the contest among you and other candidates?

Santorum: Obviously the issue of marriage is an important one.  Never before in the history of Iowa, I've been told, were judges up for retention thrown out, in this case all three of them thrown out.  It is clear why they were thrown out is because they abused their position and imposed a novel meaning of marriage on the Constitution.

Glover: Is there a political risk to you in taking this position on same-sex marriage and maybe a reason some of the other candidates have been less vocal?  I have seen some polling suggesting that for people under 40 this is a loser of an issue and it doesn't motivate people in the overall universe.

Santorum: ...Can children be raised in a different environment?  Yes.  But we want to do what is best for children and what is best for children, by any measure, and even the left now admits this, scientifically, social science work, children raised in two-parent homes with moms and dads do better.  And so as a society it is in our interest to encourage that and I think be re-defining marriage we don't encourage it, we discourage it.

ON UNION-BUSTING BY WISCONSIN'S GOV. WALKER

Borg: So, you support what the governor and the republican dominated legislature want to do?

Santorum: Well, they have to, yes, the answer short and sweet, yes... the state wants to give the municipalities, through these reforms of the collective bargaining process, the ability to do the same when it comes to municipal employees.

Borg: This could become contagious, however, to other states and to the federal government.

Santorum: I hope so  ...Remember, public sector unions didn't exist until John F. Kennedy in 1962 through an executive order created the ability for these public sector unions to exist on the federal level.  This is a relatively new thing.  And folks as to the left as Franklin Roosevelt said that these public sector unions can not exist, that it is improper for them to exist.

Glover:  Have you given organized labor a shot of energy?

...I don't think that gives a big jolt in support of labor unions when it looks like teachers care about one thing, they care about their money and their benefits, they don't care about quality education and serving students and are having doctors give fake excuses for them to miss work.  I don't think that is to the benefit of the labor unions.

...So, I mean, you have taxpayers paying money to the state governments and the federal government, that money goes back to labor unions to go back and lobby for the taxpayers to pay even more money to the very people.  This is classic how the democrats have gained and accessed power and I think it is exposing this deep underbelly of, the soft underbelly of the democrats and how they have maintained and grown power in America.

ON ABORTION: 

Glover: This issue has dogged you in the past.  When you first started coming to Iowa commercials were run against you accusing you of being a pro-life fraud because you had supported Arlen Specter and Christie Todd Whitman.  How do you defend that?

Santorum: Well, I supported Christie Todd Whitman over a guy by the name of Jim McGreevey who some now know who got thrown out of office, he actually became Governor of New Jersey later on...In the case of Arlen Specter, look, I made a prudential judgment.  We were at a 51-49 majority in the United States Senate at the time that Specter was up for re-election, President Bush was up for re-election in 2004 and we knew that there would be two to three Supreme Court nominees that would be coming forward in the next four to six years, four years, under President Bush...

ON IRAN AND EGYPT:

When a revolution occurred in Iran the President decided to do nothing.  In fact, he decided to support the ruling regime, the theocracy in Iran that has been at war and has been killing American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, he supported that regime against a pro-democracy revolution in the country of Iran.  Eighteen months later in Egypt the same situation occurred with riots in the street.  In this case, though, we had a friend of the United States, not a sworn enemy as in Iran, but a friend of the United States and so what did the President do?  Did he side with our friend just like he sided with the enemy leadership in Iran?  No.  He took the side of the demonstrators and said Mubarak has to go.