Separation of Church and State Makes Santorum Vomit

Above is John Kennedy speaking about separation of church and state. Let us remember the context of the day. Fundamentalists were scurrying about telling voters that Kennedy would take orders from the Vatican and would impose Catholic doctrine through public policy. In this speech Kennedy was speaking to Southern Baptist leaders. But, this was before fundamentalists got a taste of political power and realized they might be able to oppress others in their name of their religion. And that was an entirely different matter.

But, when Kennedy spoke, the idea of separation of church and state was the consensus. There was no "Religious Right" intent on imposing theocratic laws. Santorum said: "I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute." He said that this very idea would make most people "throw up."

Perhaps, it is time to remind fundamentalists that just because Santorum repeats their hateful slogans, that doesn't make him one of them. He is a Catholic and his doctrines are Catholic. He believes that Protestantism is a false church and that Baptists are heretics. Mr. Santorum's religious views are a radical Catholicism unlike that of most Catholics. Yes, a few fanatics (Jennifer Morse comes to mind) are as extreme as Santorum, but most Catholics don't want the law to reflect church doctrine.

Santorum has claimed that Satan has America in its grips—Satan! Pretty soon he'll be saying that libertarians are demon possessed and should be exorcised. He claims that mainline Protestantism isn't even part of "the world of Christianity as I see it." Some people thought that would alienate fundamentalists, but they hate mainline Protestantism as much as Santorum does. When Santorum rags on mainline Protestants and attacks gay people the fundamentalists think he sounds like them.

Simply put, fundamentalist Christians are not the brightest bulbs around. They are less educated and less informed than the general population. Many of them simply don't know that Santorum is a hated Roman Catholic. They pick up a bit of news here and there and hear him spewing his hateful messages and they shout, "Amen, brother." But, they don't really see him as a "brother" in Christ at all; at least they wouldn't if they knew he was Catholic. Then he would be part of the Great Whore of Babylon—the Vatican.

The media has made much of Romney being a member of the Mormon cult. His sect membership is unusual. After all, less than one in a hundred people attend a Mormon church. And, contrary to Mormon PR material, the sect is not growing but stagnant, even in spite of among Mormon woman. But Santorum's Catholicism is not unusual. About a quarter of all Americans have some affiliation with Catholicism. Of course, most Catholics have enough common sense that they don't take all Catholic doctrine seriously—Santorum is not one them.

So, while Romney's membership in the Mormon cult is widely touted to ignorant fundamentalists, Santorum's rabid Catholicism is more hidden. Romney's religion is in their face, Santorum's is not discussed. His views are talked about but not so much his Catholicism. This is allowing fundamentalists to compare a candidate that sounds as hateful as they do, to a candidate they know is "not a Christian." Truth be told, a huge percentage of fundamentalists would also say Santorum is no Christian, if they focused on his Catholicism.

The way the media has covered the religious debate in God's Own Party (GOP) plays to Santorum's advantage. Now, I don't think it much matters if the Republicans win or the Democrats win. They both are in a race to see which disgusts me most. But, I do know most media employees tend to be Democrats and would rather see Obama win than any Republican. Given that I don't believe the bulk of independent voters will support someone as noxious as Santorum, media coverage of the GOP is helping Obama.

Now, from an entirely practical viewpoint, I won't vote. My vote will make zero difference in outcome, but then neither will your own. The best outcome, as I see it, would be neither party having control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. Given that the Republicans are more likely to win control of the House, than the Senate, then Obama winning the White House would do the least harm to liberty and individual rights.

This wouldn't be because Obama much cares for either. But a Republican House is likely to stymie his efforts. So, I'd prefer to see the GOP win the House and Obama win the White House. In that case, a Santorum candidacy would be optimal. Republicans in the House turn into Big Government evangelists the moment a Republican is in the White House. As for the Senate, I'd like to see it as evenly divided as possible.

If I were a Republican seeking political power then I would not want Santorum even in the race. Every time he opens his mouth he alienates independent voters. But, I'm not a Republican. As far as I'm concerned the only decent Republican running was Gary Johnson and he dropped out to run as a Libertarian. If I were to force myself to vote I'd vote for Gary, if he were the LP candidate—maybe. I have little confidence that the LP will give Gary a decent running mate and are more likely to inflict a conservative like Wayne Root, or some ideologue with little understanding of reality. That the LP continues to allow open racists to hold positions in the party, men like David Macko, is just too much for me to stomach.

We need a party that represents the mushy-libertarian middle of American politics. But the Democrats are held hostage by greedy unions, the Republicans are held hostage by religious crazies, and the LP is held hostage by idiots.

Either Someone is Clueless or Very Funny

As many of you would know, Rick Santorum, due to his vicious theocratic tendencies was the butt of a joke. Writer Dan Savage promised to create a definition of Santorum and propel it to the top of the Google search pages. He created a page called spreadingsantorum.com where the name is defined as: "The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex." The site gets more hits through Google than Santorum's own website so it sits first in the ranking when Santorum is entered into the search engine. Given that, check out the Philadelphia Daily News with there recent headline regarding the frothy mixture himself. This is funny.

To Preserve Liberty We Must Destroy Liberty

Theocrat Rick Santorum, your typical Republican these days, says that the way to preserve religious liberty is make civil law subject to "God's law."

Of course, what theocrats mean in particular is not God's law at all, but their interpretation of which God they think is the magic man in the sky, and their view of what the man in the sky allegedly says is the law.

Even the violent, cruel God of the Bible is unclear. Christians don't agree with each other as to what writings make up the Bible. For instance, Santorum is seen here trying to appeal to hateful fundamentalist Baptists at their church. What Santorum calls the Bible is different from what these Baptists call the Bible. Santorum's Bible includes Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, additional parts of Esther and First and Second Machabees. The Bible carried by Santorum's audience has none of those books.

Then there are the Old and New Testaments with different versions of "God's law." Which law is applied in which circumstance? Christians have literally gone to war with each other to try to settle these questions. Their assumption was that whichever side managed to kill the most people had the right to determine what law of the "God of love" could be imposed under penalty of execution. Even within the same denominations these people can't make up their mind which "God's law" is the correct "God's law."

And since the deity is silent on such matters it really comes down to man's beliefs, not God's law at all. It is man who has to determine what "God's law" is supposed to be. And men disagree with one another as to which God is true, if any; which law is God's law and how that law is applicable, etc.

In the end, when a politician like Santorum appeals to "God's law" as superior to all civil law, he is asking for unlimited powers, unrestricted by any concept of individual rights. What he means is that he wants the power to impose his alleged moral code on others, by violence if necessary, because he pretends to speak for God. As far as I know God is not a registered voter and hasn't endorse Santorum, or any other two-bit con man with a lust for power.

The Desperation of Rick Santorum

One of the major losers in the Republican presidential primary is Rick Santorum. He has garnered almost no attention in spite of the media including him in debate after debate—note that the press only excludes one legitimate candidate regularly, Gov. Gary Johnson, the only libertarian in the race. Santorum has built his entire campaign on flogging a dead horse. He's trying to attract fanatical fundamentalists to his campaign.

There are several problems with this. First, Santorum thinks he can win over the fundamentalist vote but he has a problem shared with Romney. In the eyes of Christian fundamentalists Mr. Santorum is NOT a Christian, but a Catholic. Fundamentalists hate all religions that are not part of their sect. The dyed-in-the-wool Southern Baptist might tolerate a Pentecostal as a Christian—barely—but he won't cotton to no Catholic or Mormon. Why the Book of Revelation, clearly indicates—as clear as mud at least—that Catholicism is the Church of the Anti-Christ.

Santorum is trying hard to give the fundamentalists someone to hate more than Catholics. the Religious Right coalition, mainly fundamentalists with a tiny smattering of the magic-underwear Mormons and a minority of Catholics, is only held together by one thing today—a common hatred of gay people. Sure the conservative movement today is vehemently anti-immigrant—of course, they pretend they are only against "illegal" immigration, but the evidence shows otherwise—but Catholicism is only avoiding collapse in America because of immigrants. And the Mormons have found that uneducated Hispanic immigrants are often prime candidates for their normally vane attempts at convincing people that the con man Joseph Smith was some sort of prophet. So anti-immigrant hatred doesn't hold the Religious Right together the way scapegoating gay people can.

The other problem of the Religious Right is that American fundamentalism is in a state of advanced decay. Most fundamentalist churches are losing members. The percentage of Americans who claim to be members of one of these ignorant sects is going down. And young Christians in these churches are pretty much disgusted by their elders. Not only are they not attracting much in the way of new blood, but they are losing their own young to "the world," as these cultists put it.

Santorum, however, has nowhere else to go. He's a nobody in a field of morons, bigots, and Know Nothings—with the exception of Gary Johnson. And the only horse he's got for his pathetic bandwagon is the dead one. So flog it he must, even if he looks ridiculous doing so.

Santorum's latest act of desperation was at a so-called "Values Voter Summit," a klavern of the Religious Right where Republicans gather to spew venom, spit hatred, and fantasize the good old days of lynchings, witch burnings, and heresy trials. This klavern included all the conservative candidates that suck up to the fundamentalists, including their fellow fundamentalist Ron Paul. They do, of course, follow the lead of the media and exclude Gary Johnson, not that a non-bigot like Gary would win any support there.

Santorum used his appearance at the klavern konference to lie to the attendees. Mind you, lying doesn't upset these people, their entire political agenda depends on it. But Santorum's lie is so obviously false that it shows how desperate he is.

Recently, as most informed people know, the so-called Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy was abolished and the American military entered the modern world, much to the horror of the Bible-beating bigots. Soldiers no longer have to fear expulsion from the military simply for being gay. This brought up a question from some military chaplains. Given that it no longer an offense to be gay in the military, and given that gay marriage is legal is some states, what may chaplains do in regards to same-sex marriages?

The Pentagon issued a directive stating that if the chaplain is in a state with marriage equality, and if he wishes to do so, he may perform a same-sex marriage. But the directive clearly said, "a chaplain is NOT required to participate in or officiate a private ceremony if doing so would be in variance with the tenets of his or her religion or personal beliefs." That is pretty clear.

Santorum, however, got up and told the values klavern that the directive says the complete opposite. He said that Obama "has instructed his military chaplains to marry people in direct contravention—marry gays and lesbians—in direct contravention to the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage in federal law as between a man and a woman. So not only did the President not defend the law, he has now instructive people in the military to break the law."

There are two lies contained in this short sentence—clearly if Santorum is going to be the darling of the Values klan he will have to learn how to pack more lies into one sentence—if he's going to compete with the likes of Maggie Gallagher or Jennifer Morse.

The first lie is the obvious one: the President did NOT instruct chaplains to perform same-sex marriages. Obama is still too cowardly to announce he supports marriage equality. The directive from the Pentagon merely says that chaplains MAY participate in such ceremonies if they wish to do so but that no one is required to participate.

Secondly, if a chaplain feels that participation is the moral thing to do, the odious Defense of Marriage Act does NOT make his participation illegal. Is Santorum really saying that he wants the law to chain chaplains down from participating in legal civil ceremonies, or private religious ones?

There is one bit of honesty in that statement as well. Santorum admits the DOMA "defines marriage in federal law." Ron Paul continues to lie about that claiming that he supports DOMA but also wants marriage defined by the states. DOMA does create a federal definition of marriage, for the first time in American history. And it restricts the federal government from recognizing valid marriages performed in the individual states UNLESS it meets the federal standard. But it does not restrict the actions of ministers, priests, rabbis or chaplains of any faith.

And the real hypocrisy here is that while repeal of DADT doesn't strip chaplains of their right to choose what ceremonies to participate in, Santorum's interpretation of DOMA does. Santorum says such participating is a violation of federal law. So it is Rick Santorum who is assaulting the religious freedom of chaplains, not Obama. There is plenty to bitch about when it comes to Obama, but this isn't one of the issues.