Presidential candidate Rick Santorum
continues to reference President Abraham Lincoln when discussing his
opposition to gay marriage.
The 53-year-old Santorum and his 7
children and wife are touring Iowa on their way to next week's Ames
Straw Poll. He said he's made over 100 appearances in small venues
throughout the state.
In several speeches, Santorum has
attempted to explain his opposition to states deciding on marriage
equality by invoking Lincoln's legacy.
“Abraham Lincoln and Frederick
Douglass had a little debate about whether states have the right to
do wrong,” he
told a group of roughly 50 supporters on Saturday. “If the
institution that these states are propagating is wrong and harmful to
the family, the states may have the legal right to do it, but as far
as I'm concerned, they don't have the moral right to do it, and we
should stand up and fight against what they're doing.”
Santorum could be alluding to a series
of seven debates between Stephen A. Douglas – not Frederick
Douglass – and Abraham Lincoln which drew nationwide attention in
1858. During three debates, Lincoln said, “We do not have the
right to do wrong,” in response to Douglas' assertion that slavery
should be allowed in the territories. (Frederick Douglass was an
escaped slave who went on to become a leader of the abolitionist
movement. That is, Douglass and Lincoln were in agreement that
slavery was morally wrong.)
Is Santorum saying that gay marriage is
morally wrong like slavery? Furthermore, is he attempting to
dislodge claims by gay rights activists that marriage is a civil
right?