Why is Rick Santorum Obsessed with Gay People?

Former PA Senator Rick Santorum has been hanging much of his presidential campaign on bashing LGBT folks. He’s made a lot of hateful comments over the years, but we rounded up the seven dumbest things he’s said about gay people. And this has us wondering why the GOP contender is so darn obsessed with gay people anyway? Does thou protest a little too much?

1. “Even fathers in jail who had abandoned their kids were still better than no father at all to have in their children’s lives.”

2. He argues that gay soldiers would disrupt the military because “they’re in close quarters, they live with people, they obviously shower with people.”

3. “Now the courts have created a super-right that’s above a right that’s actually in the Constitution, and that’s of sexual liberty. And I think that’s a wrong, that’s a destructive element.”

4. “Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman….In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever, to my knowledge, included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality.”

5. He blames liberalism on the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, saying that it’s “no surprise that the center of the Catholic Church abuse took place in very liberal, or perhaps the nation’s most liberal area – Boston.”

6. “Is anyone saying same-sex couples can’t love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?”

5. “A lesbian woman came up to me and said, ‘why are you denying me my right?’ I said, ‘well, because it’s not a right.’ It’s a privilege that society recognizes because society sees intrinsic value to that relationship over any other relationship.”

6. “ I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts. As I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships.”

7. “What we’re talking about, basically, is priests who were having sexual relations with post-pubescent men. We’re not talking about priests with three-year-olds, or five-year-olds. We’re talking about a basic homosexual relationship.”