Rick Santorum: Homosexual behaviour is a choice
![PinkNews logo on pink background with rainbow corners.](https://www.thepinknews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/PN-Article-Image-P.png?w=792&h=416&crop=1)
Republican Rick Santorum has claimed that homosexual behaviour is a choice.
The failed Republican presidential candidate made the comments while defending Texas Governor Rick Perry’s statement that people can ‘choose’ to be gay in the same way you can ‘choose’ not to be an alcoholic.
He told USAToday: “I think anybody’s behaviour is a choice. Behaviour is a choice.
“I think doing analogies and comparisons can be very dicey and tricky affairs, because people get very upset when you do them.
“But the point that Gov. Perry was making, which is that any type of behaviour action is a choice, is an accurate depiction.”
Speaking about Republican Governor Chris Christie, who yesterday rebuked Perry for his comments, Santorum said he didn’t line up with Republican values.
He said: “I’m seeing too many of those issues where [Christie] doesn’t line up with average Americans who are the base of the Republican Party right now.
“I think he’d have a hard time [running for President], given the decisions he’s made on some of these issues.”
He had repeatedly refused to comment last month, after a judge that he personally endorsed struck down Pennsylvania’s marriage ban.
Judge John E Jones struck down the state’s ban last month, writing: “We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history.”
In 2002, Santorum warmly endorsed the judge at his senate confirmation hearing, saying: “John Jones is another outstanding lawyer and has served not just as an outstanding lawyer, but served the community beyond the practice of law.