in the united states senate where i differ from michelle is really a matter of proven leadership. >> real life rocky times two. victor ortiz in the fight of his life. >> i'm taking my title home. that means the victory as well. >> and the great oscar de la hoya life lessons from a tentime world champion. >> it can ruin your life. it almost ruined mine. >> this is "piers morgan tonight." joining me now is rick santorum, one of the crowded field of republicans who aim to challenge barack obama in 2012. senator, thank you for joining me. >> thank you, piers. good to be on. >> i don't want to start on a defeater's note here but the cnn poll on monday had you at 1% of the vote to be the republican nominee. >> i don't really care what the national poll say. they don't really matter at all at this point. the polls that matter are in iowa, new hampshire, and south carolina. those are the first three states. folks from new york and california don't have much of a say at this point and whether we're doing well there or not doesn't really matter. we need to do well in iowa. the most recent poll we went from 2% to 3% in the most recent poll has us at 7% or 8% as a result of our finish at ames and a good grassroots organization on the ground there and that's where we're spending our time and getting the attention in front of the people and telling them our vision for how we're going to create jobs, how we're going to get this country moving again, how we're going to build on the strong moral traditions of our country and how to make our people safe. >> how are you going to make yourself sexy on the national stage? >> you know, i'm not about making myself sexy on the national stage. it doesn't matter. you know, i know the media loves to talk about national stage. >> it will matter. >> well, ultimately it will but i'll take that opportunity when the time comes. the time is not now. the first primary is not until five or six months away. and that primary -- excuse me, it's a caucus. that caucus will be held in iowa. if you look four years ago, john mccain was carrying a suitcase from airport to airport and state to state. mike huckabee was by the way exactly the same place i was in the polls, 7% or 8% after the ames straw poll and they ended up the two people that were at the very end determining who the nominee was and nobody in the media paid any attention to them now. they weren't considered sexy. we have a long way to go between now and february. we have the ideas that are motivating people who get to see the candidates and evaluate them and they're not seeing a whole lot and evaluating a lot on a national level but they are in iowa, new hampshire and south carolina. >> what do you make of your rivals, mr. perry in particular given he's the latest front runner? >> i think -- you know, again, i go back to my child story that i analgize on my campaign, the little engine that could. there were lots of shiny engines that come out of the round house and go by and we just hitched up our wagon and train and plugging over that mountain right now. there are candidates that are going to come and go and they're going to get the kind of treatment and inspection that candidates get and we've seen every one of these folks who have shot to the top of the ratings end up coming back down to earth once they have to get in front of the cameras in a debate. we haven't seen governor perry in a debate yet. haven't seen him do much in the way of interviews yet. i've done this for 12 years in the united states senate where i was under the kind of scrutiny that a national figure is on. i've done it in a state like pennsylvania where i haven't backed away from any questions or any interviews. i don't hide myself from the public or from the press. i make myself available. i do something that at least i get a loss of positive comments when i go to early primary states. i answer the question. i think that's what folks are looking for. someone authentic. someone who is available and trustworthy and someone says they're going to do what they say they're going to do. >> if you're in the mood to answer questions, answer this one. >> i promote that, yeah. >> how do you explain the american public to back a little engine when clearly what the american economy needs is a bloody great steam train? >> yeah, well, if you look at the plan that i've put forward, it is a pretty powerful locomotive. i come from a little town in western pennsylvania, butler, pennsylvania, a little steel town. when i was growing up as a kid, 21% of the people in this country were engaged in manufacturing. right now it's down to 9%. not because we haven't created products we can make in america. we're a great engine of innovation but that innovative product is being made other places around the world. why? because we aren't competitive here and what made us uncompetitive in large part has been government. one big impediment is our tax structure. it doesn't match up well against other tax structures because we have income based tax and not sales based tax. what i do is encourage manufacturing to come back in the united states is to cut the corporate rate which is 35% for manufacturers and cut it to zero. if you manufacture in america, you will pay no corporate tax. that's a powerful incentive to build things and make things and process things here. >> how much more tax would you like warren buffett to pay? >> warren buffett pays capital gains taxes. it's great for warren buffett to say raise the income tax. he doesn't pay income tax. he pays capital gains taxes. >> he's invited you -- wait a minute. he's invited you and all presidential candidates he's invited to throw the book at him and to tax him more money. here's your chance. if you were president, how much would you like to tax warren buffett? set some perimeters because he wants you to. >> i would say there's a website, i use that website and it was a website when i was in congress, but there was a place where you can go and you can write a check to the federal government right now to pay down the debt. if warren buffett is feeling guilty that he isn't paying enough tax, warren buffett can go on a website and fill out his credit card which will accept any number he puts in there and pay a billion dollars to pay down the deficit if he wants to contribute more to the american government. the idea because warren buffett wants to pay more taxes that we are now going to create a new tax structure for people like warren buffett, again, he isn't going to pay those taxes if we raise the tax on income. we would only do it if we raise tax on capital gains and if we do that, we'll hurt more people than warren buffett and hurt this economy. >> if i'm watching this as ordinary joe on the street, i would say why isn't warren buffett paying income tax and what are you going to do about it to make sure the super rich like him do pay income tax? >> that's a really great question. most americans know the answer to that question. if you are rich enough, you can structure the way you receive income in the most tax pref engsal way. he says i'll pay more income taxes, then -- pardon? >> i said stop him. close the loopholes. >> it's not a loophole. >> why are you laughing? >> he doesn't collect income tax. he can structure it to where he collects his money and makes his money on capital gains. you can raise the capital gains tax but when you do that, you affect ordinary citizens who are investing in the markets paying at 15% and you don't chase warren buffett down and penalize everyone. that's the point. when you raise taxes going after -- a larger people. >> it's not the point. warren buffett is setting his own perimeters. he's laying out how he would structure it. why don't you in a case of people like him, introduce a new capital gains tax at $20 million or whatever it may be and make it pretty punitive and use the fact that warren buffett, america's richest man in this time of crisis for his country, has decided to put his own money where his mouth is. >> well, look, warren buffett invested a lot of money in bank of america and a lot of people who own bank of america shares are very happy about that by the way that he took his billions of dollars and put it in bank of america and now the stock price is up about 30% or 40% and a lot of folks are very happy about that who are bank of america shareholders who are a lot of ordinary folks here in america. you know, i would rather see warren buffett take that capital instead of giving it to the federal government with what the tax rates are now and deploy it in ways that will get this american economy going again. that's the most important thing we can do with warren buffett and not confiscate it but create an environment that he wants to invest in. right now we have a president who is punitive in his regulation and punitive in what he wants to do with increasing taxes and punitive in the way he's formulated his health care policy and that is freezing business from investing. last thing we need to do is create even more punitive laws in place to make the warren buffett's of this world either leave the country or even further employ tax lawyers to find their way around the next tax gimmick the federal government lays against them. >> well, you joined a long list of republicans who refuse to tax warren buffett even though he's desperate to be taxed more. we'll leave it there. when we come back after the break, i would like to talk to you, senator, about your views on gay marriage and you're not allowed to walk out like christine o'donnell. you can't because you're not in the studio. >> he's comparing gay sex to incest and polygamy. how dare he do this. and they have gone out on jihad against rick santorum since then. >> what's all this about a gay jihad? what do you mean by that? >> well, a lot has been written about this. i don't need to give live air time to folks who have been rather vial in the way they have attacked me and attacked the position i have and they have distorted the thing i just talked about which is that i was talking about a united states supreme court case on the issue of marriage and what that court decision would be with respect to how it would play out with respect to marriage and the quote that i have been "criticized" for was almost identical to a quote in a 1980 supreme court case where the majority said what i said and the minority who was justice white appointee under john kennedy who said what i said and justice scalia said exactly what i said which is that if the supreme court establishes a right to consensual sexual activity, it's hard to draw the line between what sexual activity will be permitted under the constitution and leaves open a long list of consensual activities that many would find unappealing. that's what i said. i stand by the comment. just like i'm sure justice scalia and justice white stood by their comments. >> do you think homosexuality is a sin? >> that's a decision not for a politician. that's a decision for someone who is a cleric. i don't -- i'm not in that line of work. the line of work i'm in is to -- there are a lot of things in society that are "sins" or moral wrongs we don't make illegal. just because something is immoral or wrong doesn't mean that it should be illegal and that the federal government or any level of government should involve themselves in. in the case i was talking about that started the controversy and the case was lawrence versus texas. i said if i was a state legislator in the state of texas dealing with the texas sodomy law, i would have voted against it. that's not something the state should involve itself in. the bottom line is whether the court then has the right to create new rights and in creating new rights it opens up in my opinion panndorpandora's which it did in massachusetts which led to gay marriage in massachusetts and gay marriage in iowa and a whole host of other states. >> you keep referring back to this complex case. that's fine. actually, there are simple arguments here. michele bachmann raised this as a huge hot potato. christine o'donnell walked off my show when i asked her about same-sex marriage. they are justified questions. you are, i believe, a catholic, so you must have a view about whether homosexuality is a sin. i think if american people want to vote for you either way as president, they are entitled to know an honest answer to a straightforward question. you did invite me to ask you any question i liked. >> i did. of course the catholic church teaches that homosexuality is a sin. i am catholic and subscribe to the catholic church's teaching. i answered the question the way i did from a public policy point of view there are a lot of things i find morally wrong or as you would use the term sinful that don't necessarily rise to the level that government should be involved in regulating that activity. i answered it correctly. i answered it directly. things are morally wrong but doesn't rise to the level of government involvement in that activity. >> how many sons do you have? >> we have four boys and three girls. >> how would you feel if one of your sons turned around one day and said, dad, i'm gay? >> i would embrace them, love them and try to help them through what i would see as a very difficult and troubling time in their lives. i know a lot of gay people. i know a lot of the folks that i've talked to who have gone through this go through a lot of very difficult times in their life in coming to that decision and struggling with it even after admitting it. this is a difficult issue. i understand it's difficult issue. my job as a father is to love my son unconditionally which i do and would do what i could do to support him to live a good and decent and faithful life. >> one of the reasons it's troubling and difficult for people to come out is because of the level of bigotry that's out there against them. i have to say that your views you espoused on this issue are bordering on bigotry, aren't they? >> no. i think just because we disagree on public policy, which is what the debate has been about which is marriage, doesn't mean that it's bigotry. just because you follow a moral code that teaches something wrong doesn't mean that -- are you suggesting that the bible and that the catholic church is bigoted? if that's what you believe, fine. i think that -- i shouldn't say fine. i don't think it's fine at all. i think that's contrary to both what we've seen in 2,000 years of human history and western civilization and trying to redefine something that has been -- that is seen as wrong from the standpoint of the church and saying a church is bigoted because it holds that opinion that is biblically based is an act of bigotry. >> i'm a catholic too. i think unfortunately we're in a different era. we're in a modern world. >> piers, i don't think the truth changes. i don't think right and wrong change based on different eras of time. there are some truths that are in fact eternal and based on nature and nature's law. that's what the church teaches and what the bible teaches and that's what reason dictates and if you look at it from all of those perspectives, i think it's a legitimate point of view. i certainly respect people who disagree with it. i don't call them bigoted because they disagree with me. >> you are indisputedly a good family man. i read about the loss of your son. talk about what happened with your newest born daughter who is very disabled and have spoken movingly about that. have either of those events if you are honest had any impact on your view of the issue of abortion because you are very entrengent about it. you don't believe that there should be any occasions in which abortion is permissible and yet you have been as a family in two situations where i would imagine it has been suggested to you that it was on option on both occasions. >> it was suggested on both occasions. i do make one exception for the life of the mother. other than the life of a mother where you have two lives and the government shouldn't involve in the choice between two lives but other than that i do believe that life begins at conception. it's not -- i shouldn't say i believe it. it's a biological fact that life begins at conception. that child in the womb is biologically human and completely and fully human and alive and therefore a human life. it's reason that tells me that person that is now alive and human should be given the rights of any person under the constitution where they are and located at that particular time in their life cycle shouldn't determine whether they have constitutional rights or not. that's something that i came to really as a matter of study more than anything else and it had to experience it with our son gabriel, who we were told had a fatal defect and was going to die and we fought for his life in the womb. we failed. it's one of the things that still i think about every day losing him and not having him as part of our family but at the same time he was a great gift to us. his short life had a huge impact on our family and through my wife's book has had a huge impact on thousands and tens of thousands of people across this country who have gone through similar things and it helped them heal. it's helped save lives of mothers who were counseled for abortion and decided to soldier on and to carry that child to term and in some cases to unfortunate ends where the child died but other cases miraculous things have happened. we feel like in some small way that our experience is an affirmation if we just welcome and accept what god gives us, the gift of a human life, that soul that we join with him in co-creating that if we just honor that and honor him and accept that challenge that god gives us, that's the best way as painful as it may be, it's the best way to walk away whole and feel that your life and that life meant something and was meaningful for the future. >> you did a controversial thing when gabriel so sadly died. although i feel it was a great thing you did. i'll be honest with you. you took his body back to the rest of your family and you spent the night with your other children cuddling his body and saying prayers and singing to him and so on. i found that profoundly moving i have to say. i would never criticize you for that. i thought it was an extraordinary courageous thing to do. what i'm curious about because you took a lot of criticism at the time for it is what impact it had on your children now that we're a few years on. could you tell me? >> yeah. first off, the reason that we did that is my wife, karen, was a neonatal intensive care nurse and worked in level 3 which is the most intense unit in pittsburgh and so for nine years she dealt with this very issue. what she learned from that experience was accepting that child in the family and including that child in the family and having the children see their brother and sister in her experience in the nicu is something that they were encouraged to do so it did create a sense of closure that you had a little brother. he was real. he's actually a real person. he actually lived. he actually is a member of our family. he is someone that we can remember and have memories of. memories are so important for little children and important for all of us. so they have a concrete memory of their little brother and they were able to hold him and know him and we were able to celebrate his life. we didn't see him as something to be ashamed of or something to be disposed of but something to be loved and accepted for who he was and the life that he lived. i don't know why people who -- we have open caskets and funerals and that's okay. if you do the same for a little child, it shows that some people don't see that child even as young as they are as completely human or completely part of the family. we do. and it was a beautiful