Lisa Graas
Santorum Strategist John Brabender Offers Insight on Upcoming Meeting With Romney
Are you curious about the direction of the Republican Party now that Mitt Romney is expected to be the nominee in the aftermath of Rick Santorum’s surprising victories in eleven states? Santorum is expected to meet with Mitt Romney on May 4 about just that, among other things.
At National Review’s The Corner, Robert Costa has some quotes from senior Santorum campaign strategist John Brabender on what he expects to be discussed at the meeting. “We’ve only taken one thing off of the table,” says Brabender. That one thing is discussion of Rick Santorum’s campaign debt.
From National Review’s The Corner:
On Friday, May 4, Rick Santorum will huddle with Mitt Romney. According to Santorum strategist John Brabender, the former rivals will discuss a variety of topics, including how Santorum could potentially work with Romney during the general-election campaign.
“It’s about more than moving toward an endorsement,” Brabender says. “It’s also about helping Rick and Governor Romney to get to know each other on a personal level. They’ve only talked in passing at the debates; they’ve never really gotten to know each other. Rick wants to sit down with Romney, one on one, and talk through some things.
Visit RickSantorum.com
Mitt Romney’s MD Chair: Women Will See Romney’s “Real Views” in the General Election
Bob Ehrlich
Mitt Romney is running as a conservative now, but in the general, we can expect a flip-flop. It was made clear already by a top Romney campaign adviser saying he will erase his conservative views as with an “Etch-A-Sketch” once the general election comes around, if he is the nominee. Tonight, Romney’s Maryland campaign chair said that women will see Mitt Romney’s “real views” in the general election.
From CNN, transcript:
Piers Morgan: Obviously, Governor Romney’s got a problem in the polling with women, not entirely surprising given the social issue debates that have been raging in the Republican Party have been pretty negatively received. How does he rebuild trust in the female vote?Romney’s Maryland Campaign Chair, Bob Ehrlich: I think that’s more a function of the Santorum campaign, quite frankly, and the Democrats using some of Senator Santorum’s verbiage to their electoral advantage, to their partisan advantage. I think, when the general election, again, when you have one-on-one election, a general election, and they see again, are reminded of Governor Romney’s real views, that gender gap will dissipate rather quickly.
Why do people vote for this? Mass insanity, that’s why. People have rejected moral reasoning, and when you reject moral reasoning, you don’t think reasonably. Believe me, I know about this in living technicolor as I live with Bipolar Disorder. If I don’t find my identity in God’s truth, I will go quite literally crazy. Healthy brains can do the same thing when they reject moral reasoning.
From Pope Benedict XVI”s Chrismas 2010 address:
Alexis de Tocqueville, in his day, observed that democracy in America had become possible and had worked because there existed a fundamental moral consensus which, transcending individual denominations, united everyone. Only if there is such a consensus on the essentials can constitutions and law function. This fundamental consensus derived from the Christian heritage is at risk wherever its place, the place of moral reasoning, is taken by the purely instrumental rationality of which I spoke earlier. In reality, this makes reason blind to what is essential. To resist this eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will. The very future of the world is at stake.
The Madonna in Sorrow. Il Sassoferrato
“Eclipse of reason.” “The very future of the world is at stake.” Is the Pope being “over the top” here? No. It is all plain as day to the faithful.
This is why I always say that we have to elect Rick Santorum because “the future of the world is at stake.” It really is. Either we embrace moral reasoning, or we sink into the abyss.
I’ve been saying since long before Rick Santorum decided to run for president that America is rejecting moral reasoning and that we are headed for a dark age if we don’t get our bearings back. Seeing people fall for the “Etch A Sketch” candidate and seeing the full weight of the Republican Party establishment out to destroy Rick Santorum’s hopes for the nomination is no surprise to me. America will elect Rick Santorum or it’s game over.
Catholics, particularly, who vote for Mitt Romney should be ashamed of themselves. The man stood on stage before a national audience and, in order to save his own political skin, told a blatant and horrific falsehood about the Catholic Church. He said that the Church voluntarily submitted to subsidizing child murder. He’s clearly a man who will say and do anything to gain power, even tell such a lie about the Church before a national audience, and yet…Catholics are voting for him. “Eclipse of reason.”
I’m ashamed of Catholic Republicans who are voting for this impostor, but then, the Church has been through worse. We’ll get through this as we have gotten through far worse things, albeit losing many souls along the way. God, help us.
Think I’m going overboard? I don’t have to win elections. I only have to remain close to Christ, because He is all. I don’t lose any sleep over the possibility that Rick Santorum may not win. As he told me tonight after losing in Maryland, Wisconsin and D.C., “God is good.” Indeed, God is good, and God will remain eternally good, even if America rejects Him. She will get what she deserves, but it is my hope that she works hard to deserve freedom by helping to elect a man of principle – Rick Santorum.
Rick Santorum’s ‘Slippery Slope’ Challenge
Rick Santorum is taking some heat in various places for some remarks he made about the failure of the Left to understand where our rights come from. In this case, as in so many other positions Santorum expounds on throughout his campaign, his views are informed by a belief about human nature that was shared by America’s Founding Fathers and by all who believe man was Created by a loving God. First, let’s listen to what Santorum said that he is being criticized for, in some circles. Then, I’ll explain the main disconnect between those who agree with the views Santorum is expressing here and those who disagree with them .
Transcript excerpt:
When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. You are a bigot and a hater because there’s no rational reason. What’s left is a government that gives you rights. What’s left are no inalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do, and when you’ll do it…and France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but, if we do, and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, that we are headed down that road.
The criticism is that Rick Santorum is using a “slippery slope fallacy” either to intentionally scare people or because of ignorance on his part. The slippery slope fallacy is also referred to as the Camel’s Nose:
When the camel’s nose enters the tent, can the rest of the camel be far behind?
In order for a slippery slope argument to be a fallacy, it must lack an argument for inevitability. Most people probably understand that the Camel’s Nose proverb is indeed a fallacy because most of us probably know that a camel may very well stick his nose into a tent without ever entering the tent. We might say it’s common sense. It does take some awareness of camel behavior to know whether or not this is a fallacy, and enough information is known by most people for them to recognize that the argument fails. The “nature of the camel” is something that one must know in order for the Camel’s Nose argument to be recognized as a fallacy. So it is with Rick Santorum’s argument about the HHS mandate. One must know something about human nature in order to understand that evil actions do set one’s feet on a path toward even more seriously evil actions.
If you do not have a good understanding of human nature, you will probably believe Rick Santorum’s argument is a fallacy. Naturally, you will come up with alternative explanations for his claim, such as that he is either ignorant or willfully scaring people. Logically speaking, if human nature is not at all what Rick Santorum believes it to be, then it would mean that he is ignorant. But if Rick Santorum is “ignorant” about human nature, then so is the Catholic Church and so are America’s Founding Fathers because his view is in keeping with both.
From the Declaration of Independence, we have a reference to human nature in the quote about Natural Law [Emphasis mine]:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
From the Catholic Church we can look to the Summa Theologica in which St. Thomas Aquinas explained that when man commits evil acts, he will develop a habit of evil, and when he practices virtuous things, he will develop virtuous habits. Certainly, we Catholics believe also that God’s grace is both necessary and available to us in this process, but most parents, Catholic or not, can tell you that letting a child get away with bad behavior will result in the child developing bad habits. So it is for each of us because we all have human nature. We should hope and pray that this is still common sense, because if it is not, America is in deep trouble.
As for Rick Santorum’s reference to the French Revolution, I have heard him make this case many times on the campaign trail. He underscores the difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution in the context of each country’s claim about where rights come from. As previously noted, the American Founders stated that our rights come from God by virtue of our being created by Him. Not so, with the French.
From the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789:
The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.
It is the above principle that Rick Santorum claims, and rightly so, that the Left in America believes in, as opposed to the American Founders’ contention that the fact that we have rights (our sovereignty) resides in the fact that we were created by God and that no nation may legitimately usurp those rights.
The claim of the Left is that it is important for the Obama Administration to force the Catholic Church to pay (through healthcare coverage) for contraceptives, including abortifacients, as a matter of “fairness” to women. This is generally what the Left in America claims to be about: “Fairness”. In this, they are claiming that they are “fair” and the Catholic Church is “not fair.” As such, they are claiming that Catholic teaching is unjust. They believe that they decide what is “just” and what is “unjust” and have decreed that the Church is opposed to their view of justice. If such a precedent were allowed to remain in “good standing” in American law, that the Catholic Church is unjust and must be oppressed wherever the state determines it to be unjust, could the guillotine really be so far away as Rick Santorum claims? This would be my only criticism of Santorum’s claim, that we are “a long way” from the guillotine.
It is precisely because so many in America, and certainly Santorum’s political opponents, fail to understand human nature and apply their erroneous understanding to their positions on the law that he will face a challenge in making the argument to the American people that the Left is not about “fairness” at all. Rather, they are about deciding for us what our rights are even though they are incompetent on the matter of human nature which was so clearly understood by those who Founded our country and penned the Bill of Rights based on that understanding.
We really do have a choice now, in this election, to choose the Constitution and the reasoning behind the rights it delineates, or to choose a view of rights that history has already shown us will lead to the guillotine.
I choose Rick Santorum.
An Important Thing To Remember About Subsidiarity…and The Republican Party
Pope Leo XIII promulated the encyclical Rerum Novarum on May 15, 1891.
Leila Miller writes about subsidiarity:
Subsidiarity holds that decisions and policies should be made at the lowest level possible, and intervention by higher and bigger social organizations should only be undertaken when those lower levels truly need and desire a supporting (not usurping!) action.
She adds:
The role of the family must not be usurped by communities and cities, the role of cities must not be usurped by states, and the role of states must not be usurped by the federal government. Worst of all is when the federal government overtakes a role proper to the family.
Generally speaking, this is true, but it cannot be applied strictly so. For instance, if a man is beating his wife, he may feel that he does not “need and desire” government intervention. In such a scenario, it is important for the state to protect her by having laws in place that will allow law enforcement to enter in and protect her. If the state refuses to pass such laws, it is then the responsibility of the federal government to pass laws that will protect her.
From Rerum Novarum:
Man precedes the State, and possesses, prior to the formation of any State, the right of providing for the substance of his body.
The rights of mankind always precede the State, prior to the formation of any State. This means that man’s rights automatically trump every level of government. That is an idea consistent with the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The Founders agree with the Church that the only purpose of civil government is to “secure” our “rights” which come from God.
Also from Rerum Novarum:
The contention, then, that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error. True, if a family finds itself in exceeding distress, utterly deprived of the counsel of friends, and without any prospect of extricating itself, it is right that extreme necessity be met by public aid, since each family is a part of the commonwealth. In like manner, if within the precincts of the household there occur grave disturbance of mutual rights, public authority should intervene to force each party to yield to the other its proper due; for this is not to deprive citizens of their rights, but justly and properly to safeguard and strengthen them.
This is why I say that it is illegitimate under Catholic teaching AND under the Declaration of Independence for any candidate for president to say that abortion is not within the purview of the federal government at all, and that it is only a matter for the individual states.
It is also why the Fourteenth Amendment,which was authored by the still-new Republican Party (founded by Christians who sought to end slavery) and enacted after the Civil War, is a legitimate protection:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Unfortunately, that very reasonable and basic protection has been abused by those who would rather not think in terms of the most basic rights of every human person but rather seek to divide us all into groups and drive wedges between us. If we were all merely considered “persons” and our rights were considered to be only those which are “inalienable” (God-given) then we would not have so many silly rules in our laws that drive wedges between people and build up resentments in society. The fact that this has happened for so many years and has created a government that has grown so very large does not give us license to “tweak” Catholic teaching and claim that lower levels of government have sole power to defend our rights. We must still defend the basic law of the land that is consistent with our Faith and never claim that any state may legitimately decide what our rights are. Those, as the Declaration says, come from God alone. They are not defined by vote in a state legislature.
The Founders were fortunate enough that these “truths” were, as they said, “self-evident” to them. They were very clear and needed no explanation. In today’s times, due to man’s continual rejection of God, we are faced with a population in which “truths” are no longer “self-evident”. “Rights” are no longer understood. This failure to recognize “truth” has been explained by the Holy Father as an “eclipse of reason“.
“To resist this eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will. The very future of the world is at stake.”
As Catholics we each have the duty “to preserve” our “capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and true” and always forsake any notion that it might be legitimate to do otherwise for expediency’s sake because we are faced with problematic man-made boundaries in politics.
Subsidiarity is not so cut and dry. Our rights are very basic and always trump all forms of government, at all levels, according to the Catholic Church, according to the Founding Fathers, and according to the Fourteenth Amendment. If our government does not defend those very basic rights, then our government is operating in illegitimacy on the point, and if we defend that illegitimacy, our defense is illegitimate no matter how convincing we, or others, may think it to be.
Some argue that because our federal government is not defending the right to life, then the federal government is operating in illegitimacy and, therefore, it is necessary to usurp the authority of the federal government on the issue of abortion. But the authority of the federal government is found in the framework of the laws, not in the persons who are elected. The laws are clear. We can see this from the Declaration of Independence and from the Fourteenth Amendment. There is no mistake that our government is sound on this principle in considering the framework of laws. It is not the law that is the problem. It is the people who refuse to enforce those laws who must be voted out and replaced with people who will enforce those laws.
The explanation I have given above regarding the duties of all levels to defend our rights, which trump all government powers, means that the Republican Party has been from its beginning, in my view, the most Catholic political party there ever was. It is now under great threat as those who believe “states rights” trump inalienable rights — manifest primarily in the abortion issue — used to only have one candidate, but now seem to have several candidates in the field taking that wholly illegitimate position that “states” have “rights”.
States do not have rights. States have powers. Only people have rights.
The Republican Party’s current pro-life plank includes at least four phrases which fly in the face of the “states rights” position.
Faithful to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence, we assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.
1. “Declaration of Independence” – As noted previously, it is in this founding document where “inalienable rights” are given as the reason for breaking away from tyranny. That is referred to as a “Natural Law” argument, which the Founders mention as “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”. If you do not agree that Natural Law should be embraced in the reading of the Constitution, then you agree with Elena Kagan, who is by no means a Republican, and disagree with Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican. (See video here of Senator Coburn questioning Kagan about whether the right to bear arms is a “natural right”.)
2. “[F]undamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed” – Any attempt to deny that right is illegitimate. Hence, the claim that any level of government — whether local, state or federal — may, if they choose, deny that right is an illegitimate claim on its face.
3. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution” — This is an acknowledgment that states cannot legitimately allow abortion.
4. “Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children” — This specifically refers to the provision “nor shall any State deprive any person of life.”
Sadly, most people appear to be taking a postion on abortion for expediency’s sake. Ask any who believe in “states rights” on abortion if they believe states may ban guns, or if states may allow unreasonable searches by law enforcement. I assure you, they will either not respond to the question, or they will fundamentally fail to understand that it is only the Fourteenth Amendment which guarantees that individual states must not ever fail to uphold our natural rights. If there is some other explanation offered from a reading of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence for these candidates failing to call for “states rights” in regard to other “natural” rights, I would be most happy to hear the explanation.
I conclude, therefore, that only two candidates currently campaigning for the Republican nomination are genuine Republicans on this issue, are genuinely in keeping with the Founders and genuinely in keeping with the Church. Not surprisingly, they are both Catholic. I will let you do the research to find out who they are.
NYTimes Calls Pro-Life Legislation a “GOP Agenda”
On the particular issue of abortion, we find solid defense of the unborn in the Republican Party’s most recent party platform. It should be expected, therefore, that members of the Republican Party would uphold the pro-life ethic in accordance with the principles outlined by their party. On the pages of the New York Times, however, efforts to enact these principles into law are characterized by “boy wonder” A. G. Sulzberger as an “agenda” of the “GOP“ that the courts are right to suppress. Sulzberger opines that such suppression offers “relief to Democrats”.
The court actions around the country have brought a measure of relief to Democrats who are hoping some of those cases will result in the courts’ overturning laws that they were unable to stop. And while Republican proponents are hoping to see these laws eventually pass muster, even failure would be instructive for legislation explicitly intended to push legal boundaries.
Virtually every bill before every legislature, regardless of the issue, is “explicitly intended to push legal boundaries”. Every change in law “pushes legal boundaries” since current “law” is a “legal boundary”. There would be no need for legislatures if “legal boundaries” could not rightly be “pushed”. The suggestion that “legal boundaries” denying the right to life cannot legitimately be “pushed” amounts to a claim that anti-life law is sacred dogma.
Writing in the context of the judiciary, Sulzberg is operating on the assumption that Roe v. Wade is sacred dogma to the Democratic Party. Roe is ostensibly an objective truth, the “boundary” that may never rightly be “pushed” in any way without causing pain to Democrats. “Relief for Democrats” comes when this sacred dogma is upheld by judges who agree with the Democratic Party that the Republicans’ claim that life has sanctity is somehow suspect.
Exactly how far does this dogma extend? According to the Democratic Party platform, the “right” to abortion absolutely includes taxpayer-funding. Sulzberger ends with a quote from a Planned Parenthood official offering the shocking claim that the legal battle to end taxpayer-funding of abortion is “wasting taxpayer dollars”.
But Peter B. Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, was upset despite the early legal victories.
“I find it irresponsible,” Mr. Brownlie said, “that publicly elected officials are passing legislation that they should know is illegal and wasting taxpayer dollars going to court to defend things that are not defensible.”
Defense of life might currently be characterized as a “GOP agenda” if the Republican Party platform’s comparison to the Democratic Party platform is any indication. It would be a travesty, however, if this remains the case. Defense of life is not something that should be confined to the realm of any party’s ideology. The paramount right to life should be defended at every time, and in every place, by everyone, regardless of party affiliation.
Though political ideologies, movements and parties may come and go, the dignity of all human life is a constant and objective reality that should be defended by all. Any movement which does not uphold the dignity of the human person is operating in illegitimacy on the point. Without the right to life, all other rights are meaningless.
Perhaps because most people still understand this basic truth, both of the major political parties in America lay claim, on some level, to defense of human dignity, but only one of these — the Republican Party — currently defends the unborn in an official capacity. Democrats would do well to embrace and promote the principle of the sanctity of life so that defense of life might be considered an American “agenda” rather than an “agenda of the GOP“.
Mother Teresa: How to Love God
Today is the Feast Day of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. I honor her today as a convert to Catholicism who, after finding Jesus in the Catholic Church, was eager to find people in the Church who were good models for me in these troubling times that we live in. Back then, in 1991, good models of Christian virtue were easy to find in Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa.
It was Mother Teresa who taught me what authentic social justice is. Get up. Do something. Work for those who have need. Stand up and do something yourself. Be active yourself. No matter who you are, reach out to those around you in need and help. Open the door for the elderly woman. Help the poor mother struggling to care for her children. Wipe the brow of the dying man.
Mother Teresa lived a dark night.
The Dark Night. Throughout 1946 and 1947, Mother Teresa experienced a profound union with Christ. But soon after she left the convent and began her work among the destitute and dying on the street, the visions and locutions ceased, and she experienced a spiritual darkness that would remain with her until her death.
Many of us experience dark nights. I have myself. I am in awe of what she did with her life while enduring this dark night for so many years.
Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Christian Candidates Have Got to Go!
For weeks, there has been a “holy war” being waged against Rick Santorum by “gay rights” activists. No one is spared from this onslaught. It should be noted that Michele Bachmann is also being attacked for her Christianity…even to the point of pirating and editing videos with lies painting her as a bigot.
Anti-Christian bigotry is afoot…and apparently…there are no rules.
de·cen·cy [dee-suhn-see]
noun.
1. the state or quality of being decent.
2. conformity to the recognized standard of propriety, good taste, modesty, etc.
There is nothing decent about the “gay rights” movement. Nothing.
The ‘Gay Rights’ Community’s Jihad Against Stacy Trasancos
Earlier, I wrote about The ‘Gay Rights’ Community’s Jihad Against Rick Santorum. The ‘jihad’ comment was rather a joking matter that allowed me to describe the main point which is Rick Santorum’s defense of Natural Law. Political candidates should be given leeway on the use of hyperbole and also should expect to be at the red hot center of verbal attacks from opponents. In my report today, however, the jihadist activity of ‘gay rights’ activists is not a joking matter at all. It is very real.
My friend Stacy Trasancos, a fellow Catholic mom who is concerned about the world her children have to grow up in, is under attack from the ‘gay rights’ community for daring to write what she thinks about public displays of affection. She’s received death threats, which she has reported to law enforcement, and is naturally questioning whether or not she should continue to simply speak publicly about her beliefs.
I believe it is important at this time for the Catholic blogosphere to come to her aid by offering support in the form of encouragement and in the form of condemning the tactics of the ‘gay rights’ movement against people of faith who simply would like to take their kids to the park without having to risk exposure to depravity, not to mention who would simply like to write what they think about things on a blog.
It’s time to stand in defense of our sister Stacy Trasancos. Read: You duped me, O Lord…and leave a note of encouragement.
Thank you.
UPDATE: I recommend we all turn to the Blessed Mother for help and not to engage in fruitless arguments, but only mature and serious discussion on this important subject.
UPDATE: Comments are now closed.
The ‘Gay Rights’ Community’s Jihad Against Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum joked that the ‘gay rights’ community has launched a jihad against him for explaining on the campaign trail that marriage is only for one man and one woman and cannot be changed even if attempts are made to redefine it. On Top Magazine says Santorum is “playing the victim card” for pointing out what really is something of a social media “holy war” on the part of “gay rights” activists. They are currently engaged not in debate but rather in a campaign to smear the good name of Rick Santorum because he refuses to uphold the “sanctity” of “gay marriage”.
The “jihad” comment has very little to do with the substance of what Rick Santorum said in the speech in question. Watch the video below. I’ll have a transcript excerpt and my own commentary afterward.
I should note that the video above has been heavily edited by “gay rights” activists who are apparently following Rick Santorum around and recording him because of the threat he poses to their movement. I would recommend to the Santorum camp that they have every speech videotaped in full and uploaded to Rick Santorum’s YouTube account as soon as possible. I’ll post every one on my blog if they will do that. Other Republican candidates should do the same as they come under attack from various groups.
What the “gay rights” community is doing to Rick Santorum by launching a smear campaign against him on Twitter and on their blogs is comparable to jihad because of its complete intolerance for Christianity. Rick Santorum is a Catholic. What he believes as a Catholic is what his conscience tells him is right and true. What these activists do not seem to understand is that it is not Santorum’s Catholicism that makes it important for him to defend traditional marriage as a presidential candidate. Rather, Santorum’s obligation to defend traditional marriage as a candidate comes from his reason and from his courage. All who understand what America really is, whether Catholic, protestant, Jewish, or even non-religious, should be standing with Rick Santorum to defend traditional marriage in America’s public square.
Here’s the quote we should be paying the closest attention to in the video.
Rick Santorum:
Marriage is what marriage is. It existed before there was the English language or a State. It is something that was given to us from the very beginning of time. It is something universal in every culture, and it has been remarkably consistent in every culture. Why? Because it reflects Nature and Nature’s God.
“Nature and Nature’s God” is a quote from the Declaration of Independence.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
When we deny Natural Law, we deny the very foundation of America. Actively campaigning for our government to enshrine as a “right” something so contradictory to Natural Law as “gay marriage” is to actively campaign for tyranny on behalf of a government that tramples the rights we are entitled to by virtue of our creation as human beings made in the image of God.
Again, from the Declaration of Independence:
[...][A]ll men are created equal [and] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights[...]
If Natural Law no longer counts in America’s laws, then there is no longer such a thing as unalienable Rights which trump the Powers of the State. “Rights” are now, apparently, based not on what we are endowed with by our Creator, but rather are based on moral relativism. If authentic rights are now meaningless, then America has essentially become nothing more than a barbaric democracy that is barely held together by the seams of a Republic established by the Founding Fathers of our nation.
Many are saying that the economy is the most important issue today. Truly, it is the issue that most immediately affects the vast majority of Americans. I would argue that the problems with our economy are merely the latest symptom of a country virtually destroyed by moral decay and failure to live up to the values upon which America was founded in the first place. It could be that our economic woes are the last gasp of a dying America. I would submit that those candidates who are running primarily on economic issues and who fail to stand for the Declaration of Independence can only ultimately provide, as President, a band-aid for a country that is suffering from internal hemorrhage.
May God help America in this time of need.
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