The post-Trent Lott face of the Republican Party's leadership in the U.S. Senate revealed itself this week, pulling back the hood of "compassionate conservatism." And guess what? It's not much different from the old face, still trying to appeal to bigoted voters with a tailor-made message.

Lott had nostalgic flashbacks to the days of segregation. Now Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum - considered the third most powerful Republican in the Senate and a one-time candidate to replace Lott as majority leader - seems to be having flashbacks to the days of the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch hunts and assorted other purges.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Santorum brooded that the U.S. Supreme Court may soon strike down sodomy laws, which 14 states still have on the books.That apparently scares the daylights out of Santorum. Decriminalizing sex between gays, he warns, may well be the end of civilization, giving people the right to do ... "anything."

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home," Santorum claimed, "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."

Santorum did generously make a distinction between homosexuality and "man on dog" sex - that must be what they mean by compassionate conservatism - but he also blamed the Catholic Church's pedophile scandal on homosexuality.

This is the kind of pap many of us thought went the way of Jesse Helms - or Trent Lott himself, who in 1998 railed that homosexuality is akin to kleptomania and alcoholism.

"You should try to show them a way to deal with that problem," Lott counseled, unaware of the problem of his own narrow-mindedness.

Santorum's comments on homosexuality are as much of a throwback as Lott's pining for a segregationist past. Even worse is that Santorum, unlike Lott, says he has nothing for which to apologize. The Republican Party likely believes that smearing gays, at this point in time, is not as big a gaffe as are racially insensitive remarks. But if the party wants to show that it has entered the 21st century with the rest of us, Santorum should be ousted immediately as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.

The Washington-based Human Rights Campaign and other gay groups have rightly called on GOP leaders to do just that. But unlike in the case of Lott, only Democrats have criticized Santorum for his remarks. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has defended Santorum, while the White House has refused to address the issue. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and presidential hopefuls Sens. Joseph Lieberman and John Kerry have spoken out strongly against Santorum. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, has demanded that President George W. Bush repudiate Santorum.

Don't hold your breath. The president and his aides have spoken out of both sides of their mouths on gay rights - when they've spoken at all - playing to their religious right base while trying not to alienate moderates. As governor, Bush supported sodomy laws, calling them a "symbolic gesture of traditional values." But the White House did not offer a brief in Lawrence v. Texas, the case before the Supreme Court seeking to overturn sodomy laws.

The strategy is to try to remain below the radar on the issue while making mostly empty gestures. Last month, when Republican National Committee head Marc Racicot spoke to the Human Rights Campaign and broadly discussed "tolerance and inclusion" for gays, it was touted by some as an example of the party's newfound embrace of gay rights. A few religious right groups complained, while the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay group, credited Bush with changing the party and the RNC.

"This is another signal that the new Republican Party under President Bush's leadership is reaching out to all groups of Americans," Patrick Guerriero, the group's leader, stated. "I think [Racicot's] remarks were honest and real and indicate a new willingness of the Republican Party to reach out to folks, including gays."

Not with Rick Santorum in a leadership role. And not with the rest of the party, including the president, staying mum about his bigoted bile.