Santorum: The personal isn’t always political

Recently some readers complained about my characterization of Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum as a “weird, pious wackadoo,” charging bias against religious conservatives. Obviously they didn’t realize that when it comes to mockery, I’m an equal-opportunity columnist. I’ve taken plenty of stabs at Democrats over the years, not least of them Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom I’ve compared to an old sofa.

Still, a lot of you thought the Santorum line was cheap and dismissive, and while I’m not inclined to recant (I was talking, after all, about a guy whose anti-gay rhetoric is extreme by any measure, and who seems to believe that married couples should have sex only for reproductive purposes), I will cop to a certain — how shall I say it? — intensity on the part of progressive-minded folks, me included, when it comes to Santorum.

For the better part of his political career, his name has been synonymous with an uncompromising and unapologetic brand of social conservatism, with staunch opposition to gay rights (including allowing gay couples to adopt children, which he says “defies nature”) and to abortion under just about any circumstances.

Extremism begets extremism: Thanks to columnist and gay rights activist Dan Savage, Santorum’s name is also synonymous with a certain icky mixture of bodily fluids. It’s the first entry that comes up when you type “Santorum” into the world’s most popular search engine, and has thus become known as Santorum’s “Google problem.”

Yes, that’s totally embarrassing in a middle school kind of way, but Santorum’s ideas have made him the target of the cool kids’ whispers and innuendo for decades now, and presumably he’s used to it. Besides, the Google problem is a considerably smaller sideshow than Santorum’s fetus problem. In 1996 his wife, Karen, delivered a son at 20 weeks’ gestation; he died two hours after birth. In her book, Karen describes bringing the baby’s body home where the Santorums’ older children held their lifeless brother. The New York Times reported that Rick and Karen slept with the body between them that night.

Perhaps you’ve heard the cries of “eww gross” floating over the cubicles at your office as the story has circulated again on the Internet, revived by Santorum’s improved electoral prospects. The rehashing also called into being news stories about how “ritualizing” the death of a baby lost late in a pregnancy isn’t all that unusual — although taking the body home, not so much.

To some degree, all of this is fair game. Santorum’s near-absolute political intolerance of choices and realities that don’t comport with his worldview opens the door to the Google problem, the fetus problem and, most recently, a story first reported by the Daily Beast/Newsweek about Karen Santorum having lived for most of her 20s with a doctor who did abortions. That’s juicy, but come on, are we now going to judge people based on whom they dated in their 20s? (Somewhere, my old roommate is shooting coffee through her nose at that thought.)

As much as I’m no Santorum fan, I think it’s time to declare a moratorium on the innuendo, the grossed-out laughter and invective. Not just because it’s unseemly but because much of it is intellectually dishonest. The act of sleeping with a baby’s corpse, or deciding not to have sex unless you want to paint the nursery again, or changing your mind about what you’re looking for in a boyfriend, doesn’t always deserve political scrutiny or public judgment — even if the Santorums bring it up.

And that’s the point. Santorum’s opponents should respect the difference between private life and public policy for this obvious reason: He himself does not. Though few doubt the sincerity of his personal beliefs, nearly everything that passes his lips is cause for doubting his understanding of basic democratic principles — the ones that honor differences, respect privacy and protect individual liberty.

Countering that Santorum problem calls not for snickering but for substantive arguments — which, let’s face it, aren’t hard to come by. Without those arguments, we risk coming across as, well, pious and wackadoo. And this is hardly the time to try to beat a master at his own game.

mdaum@latimescolumnists.com