Give Rick Santorum credit, at least, for showing up.
At the New England College Convention on Thursday afternoon in Concord, N.H., the former Pennsylvania senator and darling of Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses was met with a hostile reception from students who didn’t appreciate his absolutist views against legalizing gay marriage.
During the nearly hour-long question and answer session, New England Cable News reported, a female student asked him about that position. “How do you justify your belief, based on these morals that you have about all men being created equal,” the unnamed young woman asked, “when two men who want to marry can’t?”
“Well, what about three men?” Santorum responded. “If reason says that if you think it’s OK for two, then you have to differentiate with me as to why it’s not okay for three.”
Ultimately, Bloomberg reported, Santorum allowed that he supported New Hampshire’s legalization of same-sex marriage on states’-rights grounds, since the federal government didn’t impose the policy on state residents.
But he explained his beliefs, saying that “woman and man and woman come together to have a union to produce children which keeps civilization going and provide the best environment for children to be raised.” (RELATED: Full coverage of Rick Santorum)
“I don’t believe that we can have 50 definitions of marriage,” Santorum added. “Just to say that we should have 50 definitions of what life is. I don’t think that works either. I think there are certain things that are essential elements of society upon which society rests, that we have to have a consensus.”
Ultimately, Santorum was booed off the stage by students who gave contrary — and more socially liberal — points of view a warmer reception.
One who fit that mold was college student Brian Broom-Peltz, an undecided voter. “I’m a gay male,” he told Santorum, “and I don’t see that my interests of wanting to marry another man should be dictated by these notions.”
David is The Daily Caller’s executive editor. Follow him on Twitter.