Rick Santorum: "Marriage isn't a right, it's a privilege"

Rick Santorum told a gay man in Fulton, Missouri Friday afternoon that he didn’t deserve the “privilege” of marriage because his same-sex relationship does not “benefit” society in the same way that opposite-sex marriage does.

Towards the end of the video, Rick Santorum contends that marriage in general has changed in the past 50-60 years and "we need to re-establish marriage for what it is."

The problem with his position is that he seems to think that society is a "static" institution. One that can't move with the tides of time, history and human events.  And on that stance, he is wrong.

There was a time when slavery was the law of the land - society evolved.

A time when women couldn't vote - society evolved.

A time when people of differing skin color couldn't marry - society evolved.

I understand Rick is a big supporter of the founders of our country, like Thomas Jefferson. Perhaps he could pause and read something Thomas Jefferson wrote - which is in inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.:

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." - Thomas Jefferson, July 12, 1816