DN Editorial: Gov. Clueless

WE ALMOST feel sorry for Tom Corbett, who made headlines last week when he likened same-sex marriage to incest.

Earlier in the year, the governor's office attempted to block the legality of same-sex marriage licenses being issued by a Montgomery County register of wills and wrote, in part, "Had the clerk issued marriage licenses to 12-year-olds in violation of state law, would anyone seriously contend that each 12-year-old . . . is entitled to a hearing on the validity of his 'license'?"

During a television interview Friday, Corbett agreed that comparison was "inappropriate" and went on to say that same-sex marriage was more like the marriage between a brother and sister.

And so, by actually making that original comment even worse in his own bumbling, Corbett channeled Governor Clueless, a character he seems all too comfortable playing. Our almost-pity comes because the problem with his many faux pas is that they reveal so much about a man who is usually guarded about revealing much of anything. And yet, what this latest utterance revealed is not so much someone out of touch with modern life, but someone whose view of the world is from another century. The distaste and confusion over the idea of two adults of the same sex in a committed relationship suggests a distinctly 19th-century Victorian outlook.

Or should we say "Santorium"? This is what fellow Pennsylvanian Rick Santorum had to say a few years ago on the subject: "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. . . . Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does."

And it may be a low blow to put Corbett in the same category as Santorum. Yet, so many of the governor's comments that have caused him trouble in the past come right out of the Victorian era, an era that was squeamish about sex and unforgiving of poverty and struggle. He told women bothered by the prospect of mandatory ultrasounds before getting an abortion that they "just have to close your eyes." And he suggested that so many Pennsylvanians are unemployed because they are afraid of their ability to pass a drug test.

However hurtful his talk may be, it's his actions that do real harm. His refusal to accept a federal expansion of Medicaid is just the latest - a refusal that could leave many stranded without health coverage - but his tenure so far has been consistent in its penuriousness toward those in need. He imposed food-stamp asset tests and cut basic general assistance, child-care assistance and other social services. And then there is the starvation of public education - holding out $50 million that the Philadelphia School District needs right now in exchange for "reforms."

Pennsylvania is the only Northeast state that hasn't legalized gay marriage. Yet a recent Franklin & Marshall College poll found that 53 percent of Pennsylvania's registered voters support gay marriage. Tom Corbett is looking increasingly like a man out of time . . . in more ways than one.