Law, Unwrapped: Rick Santorum’s Cramped Family Values, Meet The Gallaghers
Rick Santorum has traveled the length and breadth of Iowa during the past… – God, how long is it? – making his case as the purest and truest “family values†culture warrior among a batch that has no shortage of that species. And, with the corn state’s caucuses mercifully upon us, it seems Santorum has finally found some tinder to set off the spark he’s been trying to ignite all this time. He might even win the blasted thing.
So, naturally I’m drawn to ask: What would Rick Santorum think of the Gallaghers?
That family, nominally led by dissipated patriarch Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy), is featured in the Showtime series “Shameless.†About to begin its second season this coming Sunday, “Shameless†is a weekly reminder that, absent sufficient resources and high-functioning parents, bigger families aren’t always better than smaller ones. The six-kid family’s survival depends on a toxic mix of petty theft and fraud, and the oldest sister, 21-year-old, Fiona (Emmy Rossum) who (barely) keeps the whole thing glued together, hasn’t the maturity to deal effectively with her siblings’ manifold dysfunctions. The alcoholic Frank is mostly a destructive force, and his wife, Monica (the rarely seen Chloe Webb), is a walking compendium of serious psychological issues who ditched her family some time ago.
What has any of this to do with Santorum? I’m coming to that.
Santorum’s moral universe is a simple and clear one, where no one uses contraception (much less aborts any fetus, no matter the circumstances), no one has sexual relations before marriage, and marriage is the norm to which everyone aspires. Gender nonconformists – for him, that’s everyone except devout heterosexuals – don’t exist, at least not as beings who act on their innermost emotional truths. Lifelong abstinence should be our aspiration.
To his credit, at least Santorum’s own marriage and life appear to reflect his own ideals. He’s the father of seven kids, the youngest of whom has a serious condition not unlike Down Syndrome; I’m confident in thinking that the Santorums never seriously considered abortion.
But not every family has the emotional, financial, and physical resources that the Santorum family has. Some are, tragically, too much like the Gallaghers. Should similarly situated folks really decline to use contraception, even while their resources are strained and they and their families are falling apart? Is abortion never to be a legal option for anyone, no matter what? Santorum might respond that families that can’t bear the weight of additional kids should abstain from sex, but that’s neither a realistic option nor, we should quickly add, an emotionally healthy one. Indeed, once we get beyond Santorum’s abstractions we can see that uncontracepted sex is often less emotionally healthy than the alternative. Couples may better enjoy sexual intimacy with their partners if it’s not shadowed by the possibility of bearing a child that the couple – for whatever reason – is ill-equipped to deal with.
That’s not the worst of it, by a long shot. Santorum is also notoriously against support programs of all sorts – and by this I mean government assistance and the kind of social capital on which so many families rely. He’s railed against welfare, food stamps, and – of course – the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (so-called “Obamacare.â€)
His positions don’t make any sense, but they make good red meat rhetoric. His argument against food stamps (so many people are obese, so no one needs more food!) operates in blinding ignorance of public health research about food choices in poor neighborhoods, while his assertion that health care reform would mean compromised treatment for people like his disabled daughter are directly contrary to fact. And his dismissal of the idea that it “takes a village†to raise a child because the phrase comes from “an African proverb†combines barely veiled racism with a pie-in-the-sky faith in families that’s belied by the facts. Many families want and need that village, and kids, especially as they get older, need other healthy adult influences.
Even stable opposite-sex couples whom you might expect to marry are moving away from the institution. Barely half of all adults are married now, and, as I discuss in this article over at Slate, some straight folks are even starting to choose civil unions over marriage – even though civil unions convey fewer benefits and were intended as a compromise for gay and lesbian couples shut out of marriage. An institution in this much trouble needs more than Santorum’s naïve homilies, which do nothing to encourage marriage but may drive even more people in the other direction by making matrimony seem out-of-touch with the complexities of today’s families.
Of course, Santorum’s not going to be the President. A win in the Iowa caucus would, in the end, provide only further ammo for the argument that this unrepresentative quadrennial political event only serves to drive the Republican party into the embrace of evangelical Christians at the expense of alienating almost everyone else. But his views are a damaging distraction from the real and serious debates that we need to have about marriage and how to value all families — and the villages that sustain them.
 Image, top, via Facebook
Were he born 10,000 years ago, John Culhane would not have survived to adulthood; he has no useful, practical skills. He is a law professor who writes about various and sundry topics, including: disaster compensation; tort law; public health law; literature; science; sports; his own personal life (when he can bear the humanity); and, especially, LGBT rights and issues. He teaches at the Widener University School of Law and is a Senior Fellow at the Thomas Jefferson School of Population Health.
He is also a contributor to Slate Magazine, and writes his own eclectic blog. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter if you’re blessed with lots of time.
John Culhane lives in the Powelton Village area of Philadelphia with his partner David and their twin daughters, Courtnee and Alexa. Each month, he awaits the third Saturday evening for the neighborhood Wine Club gathering.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
MAGA’s Airtight Front Unraveling Under Trump’s Own Priorities: Columnists
News4 days agoPlatner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
News4 days agoTrump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
News4 days agoInside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
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