Two men were ejected from a Rick
Santorum rally held in Illinois on Friday for kissing each other, the
Algonquin
Patch reported.
Fifteen minutes into Santorum's speech
at Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, outside Chicago,
the two men got the attention of the crowd and began to kiss.
The men were ejected from the rally by
guards as the crowd, estimated at 2,100, chanted “U-S-A.”
The men, Timothy Tross of Lombard and
Ben Clifford of Algonquin, declined to say whether they were a gay
couple.
“I don't think the message should be
about what my sexuality is,” Tross told the site, which is owned by
AOL. “It's the message that he's saying about sexuality that
matters.”
Outside the Christian school, about 50
protesters from the Facebook group Carmel
Catholic Alumni Against Rick Santorum protested Santorum's
anti-gay views.
“We feel it is important to counter
Santorum's anti-gay hate, to set an example to students,” Matt
Muchowski said. “Rick sends a message of bullying, but we want
high school students to know that other alumni send a message of
equality.”
Last year, vandals attacked Christian
Liberty Academy for hosting the Americans for Truth About
Homosexuality's annual
banquet honoring evangelist Scott Lively with the group's
American Truth Teller Award.
(Related: Scott
Lively being sued by Ugandan gay rights group.)
Illinois voters head to polls on
Tuesday.