As Jos wrote yesterday, Rick Santorum placed a surprising second in Tuesday’s Iowa caucus. While Zerlina is confident Santorum will remain a joke, the media loves horse race journalism more than anything and the election’s a long way off. So now might be a good time for a reminder about how absurdly extreme the guy is.
And hey look at that! Here’s Santorum himself reiterating that he thinks states should have the right to ban contraception. Yep, it’s fucking 2012, everyone uses contraception, and Santorum will have you know that Griswold v. Connecticut–the 1965 Supreme Court case that we should all give a silent thanks for every time we buy condoms without being arrested–should never have happened in his book.
“The state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statues they have. That is the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court, they are creating rights, and they should be left up to the people to decide.”
This is a good illustration of why it’s so silly to use the rhetoric of “state’s rights” to advocate for the violation of individual rights. If the state “has the right” to pass whatever it wants, because it’s up to the “the people to decide,” why couldn’t it just be left up to the, you know, actual people who would like to get some birth control pills to avoid getting pregnant?
Actually, Santorum has an answer for that too. As he said back in the fall, birth control is dangerous: “It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” He’s also patriarchal jackass, who thinks abortion providers should be criminally charged and that gay marriage is like beer (or something). Let’s make sure this one stays in the joke column for good, eh?
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