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Poor little old Rick Santorum just can't seem to get a break. What has the world come to when an anti-gay zealot like Ricky has to suffer such harsh attacks as he received from CNN's Don Lemon asking him if he actually has any gay friends? Or maybe not, but some right wing blogs that I refuse to link to thought that Don Lemon was terribly unfair to Santorum for having the nerve to make him answer questions about his bigotry towards gay people.

Keep in mind here that Don Lemon has come out as not only being gay, but being a victim of pedophilia as well, so I doubt that Lemon would be anyone that would be expected to have a warm spot for Santorum in his heart to put it mildly. Given that background, I'd say he took it pretty easy on Santorum for his attacks on the gay community and his willingness to demonize them for political gain.

Santorum once again proved that he should be considered the part of the clown show that is the GOP's list of potential candidates running for president in 2012 with this interview and good for Lemon for painting him as just another Stephen Colbert satire where he claims he has black friends as proof he's not a racist.

In the segment above, after citing a new CNN poll which shows that voters are less concerned about social issues and more concerned about the economy, CNN's Don Lemon notes that those poll results might be "very interesting" to a presidential candidate like Rick Santorum, who he points out "can be very divisive on social issues, like gay rights." That was putting it mildly and it was good to see someone like Santorum being put on the defensive for his stance on gay rights for once, even if it was tepid at best.

I'm no fan of Don Lemon given his typical stenography for all things right wing on CNN and for a lot of his coverage on that network being little more than tabloid "journalism", but I was glad to see him put Santorum on the defensive where he deserves to be during this segment.

Rough transcript below the fold.

LEMON: I was recently on Joy Behar and she said that, she called you, I think it was a bigot, I’m paraphrasing, bigoted or homophobic or what have you...

SANTORUM: I have a difference of agreement on a public policy issue. That doesn’t mean I'm, you know, I hate anybody. I don’t hate anybody. And I’m called by my faith to love everybody. I do. I mean, I pray for people whether they’re for me or against me because that’s what I’m supposed to do.

And just because I disagree with a, you know with what a definition, a legal definition of a marriage is doesn’t mean I dislike anybody or hate anybody or am spiteful of anybody or hate anybody or am spiteful of anybody because I think that’s what best for society. And we should be able to disagree without calling people bigots.

LEMON: Yeah.

SANTORUM: I think that’s really sad that you have people on the other side, because you stand up for something that has been an institution in this world for 2,000 years, that all of a sudden now, you’re a hater, you’re a mean person. I’m not. I’ve never been.

LEMON: Do you have any gay friends?

SANTORUM: Yeah. In fact I've had gay people work for me.

LEMON: Yeah. And friends.

SANTORUM: Yes!

LEMON: You know when people say I have black friends.

SANTORUM: I – well, I mean, yes, I have – in fact I was with a gay friend of mine just two days ago. I mean, so, yeah, I do. And they respect that I have differences of opinion on that. I talk about these things in front of them and we have conversations about it. They differ from me. But they know that I love them because they're my friends. And they know that I respect and we have respect for their (inaudible).

LEMON: You know that's the headline -- Rick Santorum has gay friends.

SANTORUM: It shouldn't be. It was well known that Rick Santorum had a leading gay Republican working for him for ten years. I don't know what, I don't know that the, what the shock value is here. I mean the fact of the matter is when for example, when there was a man, who was working as the Executive Director of the national Republican's Senatorial Committee, who was outed by one of the gay papers, the first person who came to his aid was me.

Because he was doing a great job. So I, I understand the narritive. It's always easy to sort of hang a narrative; oh, this guy's for, you know, standing up for traditional marriage, he must hate gay people.

No. I don't. I just disagree with what the issue of marriage should be.