Some Protest Senator’s Talk
About 1 in every 8 graduates walked out of Sunday’s commencement at Saint Joseph’s University before the keynote address by Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who has infuriated gay groups and others with derogatory remarks about homosexual behavior.
Santorum, the Senate’s third-ranking Republican, didn’t mention the walkout or the controversy directly. “We are all called to love one another, even people we disagree with, even people who hate us for what we believe,” he said.
Students were offered a chance to leave before Santorum was to get an honorary degree and make his speech, and about 100 graduates walked out amid competing boos and applause.
Some students had urged the university to rescind the invitation after he likened gay consensual sex to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery in an April 7 interview. He later said he intended the remarks as a legal analysis, not a comment on “individual lifestyles.”
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