Santorum On ‘The View’: SCOTUS Ruling States ‘Marriage Has Nothing To Do With Children Anymore’

Rick Santorum appeared on “The View” today and made obviously false claims about same-sex couples, families, marriage, and the Supreme Court’s ruling.

One of the first rules of politics is know your audience. 

Rick Santorum, currently polling between zero and one percent, clearly forgot where he was and with whom he was speaking.

“Speaking, not for, but as a part of the gay and transgender community,” Raven-Symoné, co-host on ABC’s “The View,” opened up the segment, asking Santorum, “why can we not have equal marriage rights?”

Cheers and applause erupted from the audience.

Now, you may remember Raven-Symoné from her “The Cosby Show” days, but she’s also become a well-known actress, comedian, dancer, model, singer, songwriter, television producer, and, yes, talk show host who refuses to allow herself to be labeled as anything except “human.”

Here’s how Santorum, in surrounded by an audience, the vast majority of whom support same-sex marriage, the vast majority of whom are pro-choice, and likely, the vast majority of whom are Democrats, chose to respond.

“Marriage has a particular role and purpose in society, it always has,” the former Republican senator insisted. 

“The greater purpose of marriage that society has always valued is to bring men and women together so when they have children, there’s a permanent bond by which those children can be raised by their natural mother and natural father,” Santorum lectured.

“And when you have a law that says, as the Court said, that marriage has nothing to do with children anymore, then what you’re going to have is you’re not going to have a society encouraging the behavior that is in the best interest of children and the future of society,” Santorum claimed, incredibly falsely.

Raven-Symoné pushed back.

“I don’t understand why you feel like people in the gay and transgender community can’t raise a very beautiful, smart, intelligent child as well as a man and a woman when sometimes, coming from a heterosexual family, there’s a lot more fighting, there’s a lot more going on,” she said.

“I’m not saying that a same-sex couple can’t have a very positive and nurturing environment,” Santorum replied, although he has in the past.

“Historically, and I think sociologically, if you look at today, is in the best interest of that child to be raised by their natural mother and their natural father, and that’s really what we want to encourage,” Santorum, again, falsely claimed.

Writing for the majority, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered this as the Court’s final statement in the Obergefell case that found same-sex couples indeed have a right to marriage:

“As all parties agree, many same-sex couples provide loving and nurturing homes to their children, whether biological or adopted. … Excluding same-sex couples from marriage thus conflicts with a central premise of the right to marry. Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser. They also suffer the significant material costs of being raised by unmarried parents, relegated through no fault of their own to a more difficult and uncertain family life. The marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples.”

“In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

Rick Santorum flat out… did not tell the truth when he claimed, as he has before that “the Court said, that marriage has nothing to do with children anymore.”

He also flat out… didn’t tell the truth when he claimed that it is “in the best interest of that child to be raised by their natural mother and their natural father.” 

Sure, it’s great when that happens.

But same-sex parents have proven, both anecdotally and scientifically, to provide as good a home and environment as different-sex couples.

Santorum is polling at one percent or less for a reason.

Watch:

 

Image: Screenshot via The View on ABC/YouTube
Hat tip: Rich Juzwiak/Gawker/Morning After and Huffington Post