Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday found himself being booed by a group of students after he failed to convince them that legalizing same sex marriage would also mean that polygamy was acceptable.
A young man at New England College's College Convention 2012 asked the candidate how same sex marriage effected him personally.
"I'm surprised I got a gay marriage question at a college crowd," Santorum joked. "You, the one that wants to do this, tell me the justification. What is the public purpose?"
"The reason why you would change the law to begin with is because two people who love each other, who want to legally be able to see each other if they're in the hospital, who want to just have the same right you and your wife do," a male student replied.
Santorum argued that a legal contract would allow partners to see each other in the hospital and marriage was not necessary.
"How about the ideas that all men are created equal?" a young woman asked.
"So anybody can marry anybody else?" Santorum asked as the students agreed. "So anybody can marry several people? ... So if you're not happy unless you're married to five other people, is that OK?"
"That's irrelevant!" someone shouted.
"It's morally right for two men to have the same rights as a man and a woman," the young woman explained.
"OK, well what about three men?" Santorum pressed.
"What I'm asking is how you justify your belief based on this high morals you have about all men being created equal, when two men who want to marry... I'm talking about the basic right you give another woman," the woman said.
"You know it's important that if we're going to have a discussion based on rational, reasoned thought that we employ reason," Santorum objected. "If she reflects the values [of Americans], marriage can be for anybody or any group of people, as many as necessary, any two people, or any three or four. Marriage really means whatever you want it to mean."
For his final question at the event, Santorum was asked if he would work to overturn existing same sex marriage and medical marijuana laws.
"I don't believe we can have 50 definitions of marriage in this country," Santorum opined. "I'll use an extreme example: Because you're 19-years-old and female, you're allowed to live in this state. Because he's 30-years-old and a male, he's not. Well, obviously we're not getting there and that's an absurd example. But it is -- if you're certain amount of gestational age or if you were born and there are some states that advocated for mercy killings, for example, euthanasia, and you can be euthanized if you're in one state but you can't be if you're in another state. Those are things that I think are counter to the Constitution."
"I don't know my medical marijuana laws very well to be honest with you," he added. "I feel that they are a hazardous thing for society and so I would -- well, I formed that opinion from my own life experiences and having experienced that. I went to college too."
That answer earned the former Pennsylvania senator loud and sustained boos as he tried to exit the stage.
