Rick Santorum

—CNN terminates contract with Santorum after his remarks falsely claiming there was “nothing” in America before white colonizers arrived and that Native people had not contributed to American culture: “We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here,” Santorum falsely claimed at an event. Indigenous-led organizations including the National Congress of American Indians spent weeks demanding that CNN fire Santorum for his false and racist remarks.

—Hired by CNN in 2017 as a contributor despite a history of anti-LGBTQ votes and rhetoric.

—Said marriage equality would lead to sibling marriages, “man on child” and “man on dog” marriages. 

—Said Martin Luther King Jr., would have supported anti-LGBTQ Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis.

—Following the Supreme Court ruling overturning sodomy laws that were used to imprison gays and lesbians, said: “And I stood up from the very beginning back in 2003 when the Supreme Court was going create a constitutional right to sodomy and said this is wrong we can’t do this. And so I stood up when no one else did and got hammered for it. I stood up and I continue to stand up.”

—Joined more than 200 anti-gay activists in signing a pledge (since been removed from website where it was posted) of resistance to Supreme Court rulings in favor of marriage equality, comparing such rulings to the racist Dred Scott ruling. The pledge read, in part, “We will view any decision by the Supreme Court or any court the same way history views the Dred Scott and Buck v. Bell decisions. Our highest respect for the rule of law requires that we not respect an unjust law that directly conflicts with higher law.” 

—Said marriage equality expansion in states is equivalent to redefine the chemical compounds “For me, when you say the states have the right to define marriage, it’s like saying, ‘Well, the states have the right to redefine the chemical equation for water, it can be H3O instead of H2O.’ Well, the states can’t do that. Why?” H3O is already a thing. It’s hydronium.

—As a presidential candidate, said he’d ignore the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor and enforce the parts of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act that the court struck down.

—As a presidential candidate, signed a pledge to support the “First Amendment Defense Act,” which would prohibit the federal government from “taking discriminatory action against a person on the basis that such person believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that: (1) marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or (2) sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.”

—Said even talking about transgender youth in schools would harm kids: “I don’t know why children at that age—why this is even an issue, the idea that we are introducing this type of real dangerous confusion for young people at this early age; do we really care about what we’re doing to millions of children who don’t have gender confusion and basically introducing the subject and saying, ‘Maybe you should, maybe this is something you should start thinking about at age seven.’ I mean this is really dangerous and it’s going too far.”

—Said gay rights prevent God from blessing America.