Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Politics, Religion

My Crucifix Is Bigger Than Yours: Santorum Charges President’s Agenda Springs From A”Phony Theology”

By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

Fresh off an attack on the legitimacy of public education and now surging in the polls, Republican primary candidate Rick Santorum couldn’t hold back the religious zeal.  President Obama’s agenda  is motivated by things not quite Christian the former senator from Pennsylvania charged in a recent campaign stop in Ohio.“It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology,” he said. “But no less a theology.” My, my, what could the homeschooling Roman Catholic mean? Surely not the Big Lie that the President is a Muslim, an idea that served as the red meat of Tea Party attack dogs  since Obama won the White House. No, perish the thought. The darling of the far right simply meant that the President was “imposing his values on the church, and I think that’s wrong.”  Sure, just a philosophical and scholarly difference  of opinion on health care policy and the First Amendment, coincidentally stuck smack down in the middle of a presidential campaign. Santorum even generously conceded that –wink, wink,– “if the president says he’s a Christian, he’s a Christian.” 

Like a good limbo dance, one wonders how low Santorum can go in bending over backwards to appease the unappeasable right-wing fundamentalist base, and, in this year’s Republican race to the bottom campaign, that’s saying something. We thought “Idea Man” Newt  Gingrich was the show stopper with his kids janitorial corps, but we then looked on wide-eyed as Constitutional scholar, Rick Perry, revealed to us that everything from public schools to Medicare is unconstitutional in his book. Couple that with his call for Texas Secession and we thought we’d seen everything. Not hardly, we now have Rick Santorum, whose presidential campaign is beginning to look like a papal conclave. All that’s missing is some shiny red satin beanies and the “smoke watch” parties around  the Sistine Chapel’s chimney. 

You would think that a guy with both an undergrad and law degree from Penn State could find a copy of  the Constitution or maybe just a book on Thomas Jefferson. Apparently, they are as scarce around Happy Valley as babysitting jobs for former Penn State coach and accused child molester, Jerry Sandusky.  Let me help out.  Article IV, Paragraph three  of the U.S. Constitution provides that:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
 Seems clear enough, but in the tribalized world of the Christian far right, there is only one supreme document and it’s publisher started His presses in the First Century. In that world view, there is only one authentic theology and that’s the one that should be directing all governmental processes.  Think that’s fear mongering. Take a look at this video at about 4:55:
 
 Note the falling all over themselves to “out-Christian” the next guy or gal.  The intention seems clear enough. Law must serve the Christian religion or it is phony law. That is precisely what Santorum is saying through the code-speak that every fundamentalist knows. His attack on Obama is made for the same reason he attacks public education: It smacks of the secular and that is something the mindlessly faithful can neither fathom nor accept.  And make no mistake about it, this is something quite new in our history. While religious zealotry got off the Mayflower with the Pilgrims, the historical Christian ethic has always been to divorce the religion from the moral corruption of civil governments.
 
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and graduate of the Harvard Divinity School, Christopher Hedges, calls it nothing short of American Fascism. Commenting on his 2007 book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and Their War on America, Hedges points up the anomaly:

This is a new movement, as embodied by people like James Dobson or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, who call for the creation of a Christian state, who talk about attaining secular power. And they are more properly called dominionists or Christian reconstructionists, although it’s not a widespread term, but they’re certainly not traditional fundamentalists and not traditional evangelicals. They fused the language and iconography of the Christian religion with the worst forms of American nationalism and then created this sort of radical mutation, which has built alliances with powerful right-wing interests, including corporate interests, and made tremendous inroads over the last two decades into the corridors of power.

Hedges sees the effort as a Mass Movement and one he deems “the most dangerous in American History.”  The former New York Times war correspondent also sees an ominous endgame:

I mean, essentially, when you follow the logical conclusion of the ideology they preach, there really are only two options for people who do not submit to their authority. And it’s about submission, because these people claim to speak for God and not only understand the will of God, but be able to carry it out. Either you convert, or you’re exterminated. That’s what the obsession with the End Times with the Rapture, which, by the way, is not in the Bible, is about. It is about instilling — it’s, of course, a fear-based movement, and it’s about saying, ultimately, if you do not give up control to us, you will be physically eradicated by a vengeful God.

Hedges echoes the Founders in his concerns about the threat of take over of secular government by theocratic factions. No less an expert on religious factionalism than Thomas Jefferson warned us about elevating ecclesiastical law over democracy:

[If] the nature of … government [were] a subordination of the civil to the ecclesiastical power, I [would] consider it as desperate for long years to come. Their steady habits [will] exclude the advances of information, and they [will] seem exactly where they [have always been]. And there [the] clergy will always keep them if they can. [They] will follow the bark of liberty only by the help of a tow-rope. (Thomas Jefferson, to Pierrepont, Edwards, July 1801, quoted from Eyler Robert Coates, Sr., “Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government: Freedom of Religion”)

In a sense, Santorum’s comments may be spot on. Obama does come from a philosophical position far different that Santorum and his ilk. While Santorum bases his politics in Biblical revelation, Obama comes from the perspective of the rule of law and reason. As most political observers over the centuries have noted, this is a collision course with religiosity.  It was James Madison who deduced the antagonism in the American context:

I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others. (Letter Rev. Jasper Adams, Spring 1832).

Amen, Brother Madison. Amen.

Can fundamentalist religion and secular democracy co-exist, or are they on an inevitable collision course? What do you think?

Source: New York Times

~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

193 thoughts on “My Crucifix Is Bigger Than Yours: Santorum Charges President’s Agenda Springs From A”Phony Theology””

  1. A precedent for Mitt Romney meltdown, Rick Santorum rise
    Published: Sunday, February 19, 2012, 9:03 AM
    By John Farmer/The Star-Ledger

    What’s going on in the Republican presidential campaign — the meltdown of Mitt Romney, the favorite, and the rise of Rick Santorum, darling of the party’s radicals — is not without precedent.
    Something similar occurred 40 years ago, only it was the Democrats who went through the ordeal then, with disastrous results in the November general election.
    The Romney figure in the Democratic nomination fight in 1972 was another prominent New England politician, Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, a heavy favorite when the primary season opened. The Santorum surrogate in that fight was Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, a respected figure but, like Santorum, lightly regarded, if at all, nationally.
    Things went poorly for Muskie almost from the start. He won the Iowa caucuses, but by a narrower margin than expected. The coverage in the days that followed focused more on McGovern’s surprise showing than on Muskie’s victory.
    Like Romney, Muskie was thin-skinned for a veteran politician and officeholder who’d been through the campaign grind and seemed stiff and overly proper as a platform performer. The media coverage rankled him. And it got worse in New Hampshire, next state in the nomination parade and a presumed Muskie stronghold.
    Muskie won, but again failed to meet media expectations. Worse yet was his response to an attack on his wife, Jane, by the ultra right-wing Manchester Union-Leader, the state’s largest, most influential paper.
    Instead of treating the editorial for what it was — a pinprick politically — Muskie, apparently against his advisers’ advice, staged a fight-back news conference in front of the Union-Leader offices in Manchester. It all went horribly wrong for the man from Maine.
    It snowed heavily that day. And as Muskie, obviously emotional, put in a ringing defense of Jane, water poured down his face and the word went out that this guy who would be president was a weepy sort. Actually, he was nothing of the sort.
    I saw it differently. Muskie, like Romney, had a thick head of black hair and it seemed to me that the water streaming down face was melting snow that was piling up in his hair, not tears. The media, I still believe, got it wrong, and not for the first time. Let’s face it: Tears make a better story.
    Muskie emerged from these early tests, which should have favored him, with lost momentum and risings of doubts about his candidacy, especially among a new group in the party — young radicals from the turbulent 1960s who never warmed to Muskie, the candidate of the establishment.
    Sound familiar? It should. The ardent young liberal reformers, many from groups such as Students for a Democratic Society who roiled the Democratic National Convention four years earlier, flocked to McGovern as the nomination fight stretched through the states. Their equivalents in the GOP today are the equally radical and disruptive tea party troops opposing Romney and moving toward Santorum.
    The parallel is not exact, but it is similar enough to give Republicans who believe only Romney can defeat President Obama reason to worry.
    It’s forgotten now, but President Richard Nixon, seeking re-election like Obama is, was not particularly popular as 1972 opened. The country was in a mild recession and Democrats believed they could beat him. But those hopes dissolved in a riotous convention that ran into the early morning hours before nominating McGovern.
    To make matters worse, the convention’s young McGovern-backers threw out the most effective Democratic voter-getter in the country, Chicago Mayor Dick Daley. (Daley ultimately produced more votes for McGovern than any other national Democrat.)
    As the nominee, McGovern proved colossally incompetent. His vice presidential running mate, Sen. Tom Eagleton, was discovered to have had serious mental problems and was forced to quit the ticket. Prominent Democrats and those running for office around the country abandoned McGovern.
    The guy, they feared, was contagious.
    Oh, and about the election itself: The once-vulnerable Nixon won 49 of the 50 states and roughly 61 percent of the popular vote, losing only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. It’s one of the great presidential landslides in history.
    It’s also an object lesson for Republicans ready to abandon the admittedly geeky moderate Romney for the radically satisfying Santorum. Have a care.

  4. ´Carol and AY,

    And a photo of the family posing with lil sis. And of the doctor’s attest, which Santa asked for as proof of his virginity. (He’s pushing for sainthood)

    One woman’s life threat is, if you got the money or pull, another’s convenience.
    “It was too early to fit in my campaign plan. Do it now! We’ll fix it somehow.”

    Sorry to do this to everybody, but they ARE so ghoulish. At least to us.

  7. The founders had the true horror of religious bigotry and warfare well in mind when they wrote the Constitution (particularly the first amendment) and tried to steer the country away from that madness. Now it looks like Ol Frothy and his compatriots are trying to give us a lesson in why they founders were correct.

    I never understood why some bully victims become such bullies. I’m old enough to remember a time when Catholics were ridiculed and hated in the Protestant majority; now that they are included it seems they want to exclude everyone else.

  9. If Santorium keeps this up he will crash and burn before the primaries are over. Republican mainline Christians will begin to see how fanatical he is. When the extreme right finds out his wife had an abortion to save her life, they will go beserk. So far, all they hear is the Santoriums lost a baby and brought the dead body home so the other kids could meet their dead sister Gabriel.

    I know, people deal with grief in their own way and the far right wingers might over look this creepy instance.. But once they realize the baby was aborted to save Mrs. Santorium, then what? If they want to say, “Well, okay, it was medically necessary”, where do they draw the line on abortion? For Santorium the line is clearly drawn when it is HIS wife’s life.

    If it is you, then Santorum wants your doctor in jail.

  11. I do not pretend to be a political expert, but it seems to me that in order to be nominated by the Republican party these days, one must prove they are so nutty and extremest as to be unelectable in an general election.

    Let’s hope so anyway.

  14. Talkin’Dog,
    I called him San Torum, which not knowing latin well, was equivalent to
    Torus, also doughnut shaped object.
    You’re maybe saying give him space and let’s see what evolves?

  15. nice appropriate article…. lets see…. this unfold…. Mitt is getting it from both sides….not only do the so called Christian right think he is a member of a cult…. but he is getting blasted by the Jewish for the practice of baptizing the victims of the holicaust….and including them on the morman membership rolls….

    Now if your Jesus us better than my Jesus…. then we are all in trouble Rick….Hmmmm, you think he is just another tricky Dick?

  16. I am an agnostic, yet I have friends and family that are Evangelicals. These people believe strongly in the separation of church and state. Whether or not we could call them Fundamentalists I’m not sure, though I am inclined to say no. The Fundamentalist wants others to follow his or her (ok, his) religious laws whether or not they are believers. Their existence is a threat to democracy if we are not wary, but there is the solution right there. We need more people like you, Mssr. Turley, and others to keep the light of reason shining.

  17. Great subject Mark. Mr. Santorum is in favor of removing the wall of separation and making te bible the law of the land. Can anyone spell American Taliban?

  18. This guy gets creepier and scarier each day. He also recently said mainstream Protestantism is not part of Christianity. Oh please, oh please let him be the nominee.

  19. We dogs see through people better than people do. You folks ought to do some homework on this guy who has not shown his Ellis Island papers which are more important to a Birther than a Birth Certiicate. The sanctity exuded from this guy comes right from his very name. In case you missed it. Translate Santo Rum into English= Sainted Rum.

    Just a DogTalkin

  20. Regarding the dominionists: “Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and graduate of the Harvard School of Divinity, Christopher Hedges, calls it nothing short of American Fascism.”
    —-

    He got that right.

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