Rick Santorum on Friday once again
condemned the persecution of gay people … gay people living in
Iran.
Speaking with gay weekly The
Washington Blade at the Values Voter Summit in Washington
D.C., Santorum took a swipe at President Obama for not speaking out
on the subject.
“They're killing people because
they're gay, which is a grave moral wrong,” Santorum said, then
added that as president he “would talk about it.”
“This president doesn't talk about
those things. He doesn't talk about the torture, he doesn't talk
about the killing of women and gays and imprisonment. These are
fundamental violations of human rights that I would speak about.”
The former Pennsylvania senator first
denounced the persecution of gay people in Iran during a GOP debate
held in August.
In a major speech to the United Nations
last month, Obama declared that the world's nations must stand up for
the rights of gay people: “No country should deny people their
rights because of who they love, which is why we must stand up for
the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere.”
In addressing the conservative crowd on
Friday, Santorum chided Obama for no longer defending in federal
court the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – calling the action an
“abomination” – and for allowing gay couples to marry on
military bases in states where it's legal now that “Don't Ask,
Don't Tell” has been lifted, which he labeled a violation of DOMA.
And he pledged to fight marriage
equality “in every state to make sure that marriage remains between
one man and one woman.” (The video is embedded in the right panel
of this page.)
(Related: John
Boehner criticizes Obama's gay marriage decision.)