Santorum Says Gay Parents Worse Than Convicts

Rick Santorum continued his string of antigay pronouncements while on the trail in New Hampshire, saying a man in jail would be a better parent than a same-sex couple.

The Los Angeles Times reports from Manchester, New Hampshire that Santorum claimed to quote an anti-poverty expert while explaining his case.

"He found that even fathers in jail who had abandoned their kids were still better than no father at all to have in their children's lives," Santorum told voters about the researcher, according to the Times.

If a same-sex couple were to raise a child, they would be "robbing children of something they need, they deserve, they have a right to. You may rationalize that that isn't true, but in your own life and in your own heart, you know it's true."

This isn't a new theme for Santorum and it potentially sets him apart from other Republican candidates for president. While in Iowa, where he finished behind Mitt Romney by eight votes, Santorum signed a pledge from the Iowa Family Leader that proclaimed his belief that same-sex parents are inferior to straight ones. Romney and Ron Paul did not sign the pledge, and Newt Gingrich inexplicably ignored that portion in his letter to the group backing only parts of it. (Gingrich's lesbian step-sister, Candace Gingrich-Jones, told The Advocate in December that she and her wife would like to have children.)

We can think of at least one person who would disagree with Santorum on whether kids raised by LGBT parents are robbed of anything. Watch video below of Zach Wahls, an Iowa college student who spoke eloquently last year before his state's legislature about why his moms should be allowed to marry.