Rick Santorum: homosexual ‘marriage’ would bring gay agenda into schools

by Ben Johnson

• WASHINGTON, D.C. December 9, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has stated that if the government legalizes same-sex “marriage,” it will inevitably result in public schools teaching that homosexuality is no different than heterosexuality.

While stumping in Iowa this week, a 23-year-old graduate of Dordt College challenged the former Pennsylvania senator to show any harm gay “marriage” would cause.

In response, Santorum pointed out that if the institution is legalized, schools will teach young students that homosexual “sexual activity” must be “seen as equal” to heterosexuality. He predicted, “you are going to have…spread throughout our curriculum a worldview that is fundamentally different than what is taught in schools today.”

“What is going to be taught to our children…even to little children” about the definition of “married couples [or] what families look like in America?” he asked.

Despite the student’s protests, Santorum held firm, saying, “if we say legally if this type of relationship is identical to other type relationships, then of course” schools will give an implicit sanction to homosexuality, “because this is what the law says.”

Some schools already explicitly teach that there is no difference between same-sex families and traditional families. In 2007, parents were outraged to learn a New Jersey school district showed third-graders a video entitled That’s a Family. One of the girls in the video tells viewers that having homosexual parents is “just like having a mom and dad who love each other. It’s just that it’s a man and a man, or a woman and a woman.”

The state of California passed a bill this year forbidding schools from presenting any criticism of homosexuality or transgenderism as part of their lessons and forbade parents from removing their children from such classes. The bill also mandated that schools teach students as young as six about the historical contributions LGBT Americans have made to this country.

Many schools around the country have a “zero-tolerance policy” for any form of discrimination, including sexual orientation or “gender identity.” Some of these punish any opposition to homosexuality under the rubric of combating “bullying.”

In September, a Texas high school gave a 14-year-old high school student an in-school suspension for “possible bullying” after he told a classmate he believes “being a homosexual is wrong.” This summer, a Florida high school fired a teacher for writing that he opposed same-sex “marriage” on his personal FaceBook account on his own time.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has told schools to “go beyond what the law requires in order to increase” LGBT “students’ sense of belonging.” 

Santorum has staked his campaign on his record as a champion of life and the family. In August he argued that if the United States drops opposition to same-sex “marriage” it will open the door to polygamy. If gay “marriage” is legal, why limit the institution “to just two people?” he asked.

After CNN host Piers Morgan said his Catholic beliefs that homosexuality is sinful were “bordering on bigotry,” Santorum responded, “Saying a church is bigoted because it holds that opinion that is Biblically based I think is in itself an act of bigotry.” 

Santorum’s latest comments came the same week his rival, Rick Perry, released an ad that shows the Texas governor saying, “something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.” Perry vowed to “end Obama’s war on religion” and “liberal attacks on our religious heritage.”