Rick Santorum: Gays Can’t be Married Because a Tree is Not a Car

Rick Santorum, who in recent weeks has compared marriage to a napkin, water, and beer, now says gays can't be married because a tree is not a car, in a new interview with the Iowa Independent.

Burns:

You've been pretty strong in your opposition to gay marriage. Iowa, of course, does have legalized gay marriage. How does the fact that there are a handful of gay couples married in Carroll affect my heterosexual life and your heterosexual life? How does it hurt other people in Carroll, Iowa, that there are folks among us we may not even know who happen to be gay and happen to be married? How does that hurt my life?

Santorum:

Because it changes the definition of an intrinsic element of society in a way that minimizes what that bond means to society. Marriage is what marriage is. Marriage was around before government said what it was.

It's like going out and saying, ‘That tree is a car.' Well, the tree's not a car. A tree's a tree. Marriage is marriage. You can say that tree is something other than it is. It can redefine it. But it doesn't change the essential nature of what marriage is. Marriage is a union between a man and a woman for the purposes of the benefit of both the man and the woman, a natural unitive according to nature, unitive, that is for the purposes of having and rearing children and for the benefit of both the man and the woman involved in that relationship.

Santorum goes on to warn that same-sex marriage will lead to polygamous marriages and incest.

And for the benefit of society because we need to have stable families of men and woman bonded together to raise children. That's what marriage is. You can say two people who love each other is marriage. But then why limit it to just two people? Why not three people? Why not 10 people?

If it's just about love and everybody needs to be treated equally, then why not 10? Why not allowing nieces and aunts to marry? Why not? If marriage means anyone who is in love, well, then, let everybody who is in love get married. But it's not what marriage is.

Read the full interview HERE.