Sunday, February 26, 2012

Rick Santorum on JFK's speech about separation of church and state:

“To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case? That makes me throw up.”

A portion of the speech in question:

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."

Hey Rick, it's not a question of people of faith having no role. It's a question of keeping faith out of legislation, of preventing religion from being forced on non-believers. Is this so difficult to understand? You, who practically accused Obama of being a closet Muslim, or at least an inauthentic Christian (whatever that means), who rails against Sharia law, really need to understand the problems with such double standards.

When a religious politician starts going on about the moral decline of America, claiming that it is under attack by satan, calling for the imposition of faith-based legislation that discriminates against consenting adults merely because of how they prefer to spend their intimate moments together, the double standard is so obvious that's it is actually laughable.

The simple fact is that you can't have it both ways. Judges are "activist" when they disagree with you, but just fine otherwise. It's OK when it's your religion that is being forced on the public, but if some other group disagrees with you, they're destroying our society. "Because I said so" works fine when you're dealing with a petulant child; it has no place in American politics.

No comments:

Post a Comment