Mullah Rick has spoken.
He wants religion returned to “the public square,” is opposed to contraception, premarital sex and abortion under any circumstances, wants children educated in what amounts to little red schoolhouses and called President Obama a “snob” for extolling college or some other kind of post-high school education. This is not a political platform. It’s a fatwa.
But that’s not all. On the Sunday shows, he even lit into John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech to Protestant ministers, in which he called for the strict separation of church and state. Santorum said the speech sickened him.
“What kind of country do we live in that says only people of non[-]faith can come into the public square and make their case?” Santorum asked on “This Week.” “That makes me throw up.” Earlier, he said, “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” not noticing that he was speaking from what amounts to the public square.
Kennedy’s speech is actually a sad document, a necessary attempt to combat the bigoted and ignorant notion that a Catholic President might take orders from the Vatican.
Oddly, the assurances that Kennedy offered that day are ones that I would like to hear from Santorum. He, too, is a Catholic, although not of the Kennedy variety. Santorum is severe and unamusing about his faith, and that is his prerogative. But he has shoved his beliefs in our faces, leaving no doubt that his presidency would be informed by his extremely conservative Catholicism.
This is a perilous and divisive approach. We have all of world history to warn us about what happens when religion takes too prominent a role. The public square gets used for beheadings and the like. While that is not likely to happen now — zoning rules and such forbid it — we do know that layering religion over politics is dangerous.
Santorum cannot impose — and should not argue that — his political beliefs come from God. That closes all debate and often infuriates those who differ. » | Richard Cohen, New York Daily News | Monday, February 27, 2012
