Former Republican U.S. Senator and 2012 and 2016 U.S. Presidential candidate Rick Santorum is opposed to homosexual behavior, seeing it as antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family. Santorum does not believe the right to privacy under the United States Constitution covers sexual acts, and criticized the US Supreme Court ruling in the case of Lawrence v. Texas that ruled to the contrary. Santorum has stated that the U.S. military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, which ended in 2011, should be reinstated and has voiced his opposition to same-sex parenting. Santorum's views provoked criticism from Democratic politicians and other groups, but have been supported by some conservative Christians.
In the interview by Associated Press reporter Lara Jakes Jordan, when asked for his position on the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, Santorum said that the scandal involved priests and post-pubescent men in "a basic homosexual relationship" (rather than child sexual abuse), which led the interviewer to ask if homosexuality should be outlawed.
Santorum then brought up the then-pending U.S. Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, which challenged a Texas sodomy law, and said that "he did not have a problem with homosexuals, but a problem with homosexual acts", "the right to privacy doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution", and "sodomy laws properly exist to prevent acts which undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family."