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WATCH: To Rick Santorum, Marriage Equality Proves He Was Right on Polygamy, Bestiality

WATCH: To Rick Santorum, Marriage Equality Proves He Was Right on Polygamy, Bestiality

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'If you have the right to consensual sexual activity ... then it opens the door to a variety of different things,' says the right-wing presidential hopeful.

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Now that same-sex couples have the right to marry nationwide, Rick Santorum feels his infamous prediction about "man on dog" sex has been vindicated.

That was a prediction that Santorum, then a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, made to an Associated Press reporter in April 2003, two months before the Supreme Court struck down the nation's remaining antisodomy laws in the Lawrence v. Texas case.

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery," Santorum said in 2003. "You have the right to anything. ... All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family. ... 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."

On the day the court's marriage equality ruling came down, June 26, Santorum was attending the Western Conservative Summit in Colorado, where he gave a press conference on the decision, Right Wing Watch reports. Notoriously antigay minister Gordon Klingenschmitt, who is also a Colorado state representative, posted video of the press conference Monday on his Pray in Jesus Name online TV program.

"What I said is if you have the right to consensual sexual activity ... then it opens the door to a variety of different things," Santorum, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, said during the press conference. "And this ruling did it. This ruling followed up with what I said would happen if the Supreme Court ruled the way it did, and the Supreme Court has followed their line of reasoning that I identified very early on, that if consensual sexual activity is a constitutional right, then we have to, it leads logically, as you saw in the court's opinion, that all things, that all the rights come with that."

Asked specifically about polygamy, Santorum said the court has left the door open to legalizing that.

Santorum, who has been making the media rounds lately, also thinks the marriage equality ruling might force churches to perform same-sex marriages or lose their tax-exempt status. Appearing on MSNBC's Hardball With Chris Matthews Monday night, he said, "They have a real serious First Amendment issue here. ... [The justices] are saying to you and me, Chris, you're allowed to teach what you want, but they didn't say you could practice what you want. That's a very clear sign that the court's open to having churches being told how to practice their faith."

Matthews, who is, like Santorum, a Roman Catholic, expressed great skepticism that the court would or could ever go there, but Santorum said that 15 years ago, no one believed same-sex marriage would ever be legal nationwide.

Most other legal and political experts are likewise skeptical of Santorum's various dire predictions, but that hasn't kept him from making them -- he brought up the same concern about religious freedom on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday, in addition to claiming that marriage equality puts children at risk.

All of his rhetoric doesn't seem to be bringing voters into his camp. Santorum won 11 presidential primaries and caucuses in 2012, but in this election cycle he may not even make the cut for the first debate. Fox News Channel, which is hosting the first debate in August, will allow only the 10 candidates with the best poll numbers in -- and right now Santorum, with a national poll average of 2.2 percent, isn't in the top 10.

Watch a clip of the Colorado press conference and then the Hardball interview below.

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Trudy Ring

Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.
Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.