Posted on 02/27/2012 7:10:28 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Rick Santorum is on a roll these days. And from my perspective, it seems that he can't keep his big mouth shut on issues that are both politically senstive and politically damaging these days.
But--as we've seen these past few weeks--Rick Santorum is the kind of man that doesn't believe in personal restraint.
So when he says something both damning and inflammatory, Saint Rick doesn't do things small-time. He goes big.
Forget for the moment that we are facing high gas prices, stagnant job growth, high unemployment, and everything that concerns Americans now--let's focus on religious beliefs and silly notions that go along with them: Abortion, birth control, women's rights...divisive issues that the Republicans play upon these days because they can't win on anything else.
Rick Santorum is no exception. The man is a religious windbag who touts his conservative Catholic beliefs and thinks that--in his mind--it's okay for the President of the United States to push his belief system onto the whole nation.
That everyone has to be Catholic because Ricky happens to be Catholic.
In fact, he's gone so far as to say he doesn't believe in the seperation of church and state--that is the distanced relationship between religion and the nation state--instead saying: "The First Amendment means the free exercise of religion and that means bringing people and their faith into the public square."
Fortunately, Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson would disagree with him on this; citing: "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof', thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."
The Supreme Court has ruled on this view for well over 100 years--contracting what Rick Santorum staunchly believes should be allowed to happen--regardless of what he desires and wishes of the people.
For one thing, the government cannot establish a centralized religion based on one person--or President's--beliefs.
Rick Santorum may be Catholic, doesn't mean the rest of us have to be. Nor should we be Catholic. We live in a society where we cherish our First Amendment rights--which includes freedom of religion.
Meaning that we don't have to subscribe to a singular belief system--if we don't want to. Nor should we force people publicly to accept a range of beliefs that run countercurrrent to our own individual faiths.
Sadly, Rick Santorum wants to violate our Constitutional rights for the sake of religion. But what he doesn't understand is why it can't happen in a government setting?
The Constitution prohibits it.
However, that doesn't seem to be stopping Saint Rick. He believes that as President, he can do whatever he wants and our rights be damned.
More misrepresentation on the separation of Church and State.
“For one thing, the government cannot establish a centralized religion based on one person—or President’s—beliefs.”
“Nor should we force people publicly to accept a range of beliefs that run countercurrrent to our own individual faiths.”
*****************
Yeah. well explain Islam...
I can’t stand Santorum, but this guy is clueless and fails to make a coherent point. Santorum is a holy roller, but he’s no theocrat.
Schuyler Thorpe sounds “kinda” like that Apollo dude who was zotted earlier today.
Finally, someone with the stones and the backbone to speak out on the sensitive issues that are VITAL to the survival of our Nation as a Nation of Laws, wherein dwelleth righteousness......as at our FOUNDING.
The left is going to overplay their hand big time on this.
“An online portal for citizen journalism” i.e. a blog
Holy rollers are not only conservatives who vote and work on the grassroots level but there’s TENS OF MILLIONS OF THEM, TOO.
WIN/WIN/WIN
(Go Rick!)
Schuyler Thorpe, obscure leftist blogger/ankle biter...Yawn.
Schuyler Thorpe sounds like a balding PeeWee Herman fan...
IF not a gushing Richard Simmons acolyte..
Or a time when the party in power would want to change "freedom of religion" into a Stalinist-era Soviet Union "freedom of worship."
Just one more reason why the Supreme Court should declare Obamacare unconstitutional, but that all rides on how Anthony Kennedy decides.
for the record, the term holy roller is a perforative used to describe some evangelicals and/or baptists who had a practice of being so taken by the Spirit as to roll down the aisle. Mr. Santorum is by his own admission a practicing Roman Catholic and hence not a holy roller
Nice to see that you are so in favor of the first amendment that you would prohibit someone else’s speech. Perhaps you prefer the wishy washy Mittens or the idiot Paul????
Just so. Better a Holy Roller than a Berkeley hippie, any day of the week.
I guess you prefer no contraception and a woman has her place Santorum. That’s going to get Obama voters to vote republican /sarc
Divided opinion between them...Bill's opinion that Rick felt it would have appeal to the Evangelia's and would greatly improve his chances against Romney.
Brit seemed to feel he was just undisciplined.
Actually, when I was at Harvard, I had a roommate from Indiana whose family were Holy Rollers. Every once in a while, they’d all take off and go to a tent revival meeting. No harm done that I could see.
And when I worked on an Island in the Bahamas one summer, there was a church run by the black workers that was commonly referred to as the Jumper Church. They didn’t roll, they jumped. Out of curiosity, I looked in the window during an evening service, and, sure enough.
Better than what was going on in Haiti, which I also visited that summer.
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