Why is it that when an American politician makes the occasional courageous statement — which these days means to state the obvious — it is almost inevitable that said politician will back down in the hailstorm of criticism that follows.

        Take, for example, the huge flap over statements by Sen. Rick Santorum (Rep., Pennsylvania) concerning a pending Supreme Court case that presents the question whether states may criminalize sodomy. With the Supreme Court apparently poised to undo its previous holding (in Bowers v. Hardwick) that there is no "constitutional right" to engage in sodomy, Santorum told Associated Press that "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."

        This statement of the obvious elicited howls of outrage from "gay groups" and Democrat "lawmakers." CNN quoted one Winnie Stachelberg, director of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest "gay advocacy group," who whined that "Senator Santorum's remarks are deeply hurtful and play on deep-seated fears that fly in the face of scientific evidence, common sense and basic decency." The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee called on Santorum to resign as chairman of the Republican Senate Caucus, and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said the sentiments expressed by Santorum are "out of step with our country's respect for tolerance" — tolerance, that is, for everything but the truth.

        Welcome to End Times America, a bizarre realm wherein those who dare to criticize sodomy are condemned as hurtful, indecent people. In End Times America there is nothing hurtful or indecent about sodomy, of course. Quite the contrary, sodomy is depicted as a kind of virtue in the twisted place America has become. And, this being End Times America, it is hardly surprising that in backtracking to avoid giving offense to sodomites, Santorum only succeeded in offending another morally corrupt species in the American zoo: the Mormons of Utah, who protested Santorum’s implicit criticism of the cherished Mormon tradition of bigamy. Lord, help us.

        Now here is what Santorum should have done to silence his attackers: He should have called an immediate press conference to say the following: "Here is my position on the Supreme Court’s consideration of the question whether states can criminalize sodomy. Sodomy is a grave offense against the law of God, a horribly unnatural act that the states have not only the right, but the duty, to prohibit for the common good of society. Have we forgotten that we are dust, and that to dust we shall return, to face the judgment of God? Have we forgotten the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament? What could be more insane than declaring that there is a constitutional right to engage in this abhorrent practice, which is so contrary to the plan of our Creator? Have we as a nation gone mad? Is a constitutional right to sodomy what the Founding Fathers had in view when they created our Republic? I will not back down from my condemnation of sodomy and my support for laws against it. I will retract nothing. I will resign from nothing. And if you, the media, the Democrat party or the ‘gay rights’ lobby don’t like it, I could not care less."

        If Santorum had said something like this, thus taking the moral high ground away from the demagogues, their attacks upon him would have deflated like yesterday’s birthday balloons. But, alas, Sen. Santorum chose to take the first step down the slippery slope of apologizing for telling the truth. One can only hope and pray that this fine Catholic family man with eight children will somehow manage to reverse course before the jackals at the bottom of the slope begin tearing him to pieces.