From Face the Nation on CBS:
Former Senator Alan Simpson had some choice words for his one-time colleague, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.
"I know Santorum, I served with him," he said. "He is rigid and a homophobic. He believes that gays and lesbians, he mentioned in an interview in 2003, about bestiality, and gays and lesbians. I think that's disgusting," said Simpson.
The former three-term Republican senator from Wyoming, who has always been known for both his candor and his ability to work across party lines, said Republicans are hurting themselves by focusing on social issues.
"Here's a party that believes in government out of your life, the precious right of privacy and the right to be left alone. How then can they be the hypocrisy of fiddling around in these social issues? We won't have a prayer," he told Bob Schieffer in an interview for CBS News' Face to Face, a weekly web interview from the staff of Face the Nation.
Those social issues are a defining part of Santorum's candidacy and his newfound support as a the leading conservative candidate.
"And they asked him, well he said I want a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and they said well what about the people who are already married? And he said well they would be nullified. I mean what is, what's human, what's kind about that? We're all human beings, we all know or love somebody who's gay or lesbian so what the hell is that about? To me it's startling and borders on disgust," said Simpson, who would be considered a centrist Republican by today's standards and served at a time when the two parties in Congress were not as far apart on the ideological spectrum as they are today.
Read a
transcript of the full interview with Simpson.
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