Former Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum is not backing down from his opposition to gay marriage, saying it would be political suicide for the GOP to do so.
Santorum, who ran for President in 2012, told the Des Moines Register that Republicans must maintain opposed to marriage equality to avert disaster.
He also predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court would reject gay-marriage rights in upcoming rulings on Prop 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act.
“I’m sure you could go back and read stories, oh, you know, ‘The Republican party’s going to change. This is the future.’ Obviously that didn’t happen,” he said.
“I think you’re going to see the same stories written now and it’s not going to happen. The Republican Party’s not going to change on this issue.”
“In my opinion it would be suicidal if it did.”
Santorum’s advice comes as some Republicans have urged the party to take a more libertarian stance on social issues in the wake of the 2012 election.
While many GOP lawmakers have been resistant to gay marriage, Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Rob Portman (R-OH) recently came out in favor of it.
Combined with 50 Democratic senators in favor, that gives marriage equality a majority in the U.S. Senate, as well as with the public, recent polling shows.
Just the same, Santorum steadfastly opposes it, and says the Supreme Court will as well regarding the cases of California’s Proposition 8 and DOMA.
“I think you’ll see, hopefully, a chastened Supreme Court is not going to make the same mistake in the (current) cases as they did in Roe v. Wade,” he said.
“I’m hopeful the Supreme Court learned its lesson about trying to predict where the public is going and trying to find rights in the Constitution that sit with the fancy of the day.”
The justices are expected to announce their rulings in June. Santorum is already being talked about as a candidate in the 2016 election for president.
Same-sex marriage: