Rick Santorum and the Christian Right

COMMENTARY | Rick Santorum is coming off three major caucus wins in the states of Arkansas, Colorado and Minnesota, and although no delegates were actually awarded because of these wins the perception of his strength, and perceived decline of Mitt Romney's, in this race have shifted the power dramatically.

What does this mean for the Republican party and for the current political culture of the country? Being a fairly liberal person it means nothing but negative things. Santorum's blatant and almost proud homophobia is vile and his desire to establish a system of government based on his religious beliefs is downright regressive. If Santorum were any more blinded by his faith he would be telling us that the Sun revolved around the Earth and he would be putting Galileo on trial.

I know this is not a level-headed and fair approach to Santorum's ideas but I think that his approach to minorities and homosexuals makes him deserving of nothing less than public hatred and the fact that he is actually gaining support makes me sad to be a citizen of this great nation; a nation that was the first to implement the ideas of the enlightenment and embrace science and reason in government.

Let me clarify that I do not hate Santorum because of his religious beliefs and I do not think there is anything wrong with faith. Faith is a marvelous and comforting thing and although I do not possess it I wish no will ill toward anyone who does. I was raised Catholic and I still go to church with my grandmother on holidays because it makes her happy. Despite all of my feelings to those who possess faith to aspire to run a progressive modern nation based on a book that has been translated and edited hundreds of years after the events allegedly happened which were passed down orally by people who could not write is just unseemly. The reason America is an amazing place to live is because we don't have a theocratic government and our laws are not dictated by beliefs only some of us have.

The reason so many other countries used our constitution as a template and as inspiration for their own is because we had done something special in creating a society divorced from religious voodoo and nonsense. To give any credence to the social ideas perpetrated by borderline theocrats like Santorum is to reject the knowledge our founding fathers had about the importance of the separation of church and state. Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter on April 21, 1803, which stated "It behoves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own" meaning that those who value their religious freedom must not force religion on anyone else because one day they might be on the opposite side. These are strong words from a brilliant man that should be considered by those who want to merge religion into government.