An Inclusive Litany

4/25/03

Comments by Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum on the constitutionality of anti-sodomy laws aroused outrage among gays and lesbians, who saw them as equating homosexuality with polygamy and other practices still considered taboo. "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything," said Santorum.

It turns out even polygamists are angry at Santorum. "I think he's an insult to Christianity," said 89-year-old Owen Allred, head of the United Apostolic Brethren in Bluffdale, Utah, the nation's largest pro-polygamy sect. "It makes me so mad I want to swear." Followers of the sect believe that Abraham and other biblical figures engaged in polygamy, and that the practice is blessed by God as a way to multiply the human race, not, as Allred says, "for satisfying the lust of the flesh." Allred said he believes that homosexuality is immoral. "The United States is fast becoming another Sodom and Gomorrah," he said.