January 6, 2012--Santorum's America

If you are wondering what a smaller government would look like under President Santorum, here is one small, but not really small example.

He would have the government, in effect, make contraception illegal.

He has for long opposed the Supreme Court’s 1965 ruling that invalidated a Connecticut law banning contraception and has also pledged to completely defund federal funding for contraception if elected president. As he told CaffeinatedThoughts.com editor Shane Vander Hart in October, “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think (sic) the dangers of contraception in this country."

Here's more:

Many in the Christian faith have said, "Well, that's OK . . . contraception's okay."

It's not OK because it's a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They're supposed to be within marriage, for purposes that are, yes, conjugal . . . but also procreative. That's the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act. And if you can take one part out that's not for purposes of procreation, that's not one of the reasons, then you diminish this very special bond between men and women, so why can't you take other parts of that out? And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it's simply pleasure. And that's certainly a part of it—and it's an important part of it, don't get me wrong—but there's a lot of things we do for pleasure, and this is special, and it needs to be seen as special.

Again, I know most presidents don't talk about those things, and maybe people don't want us to talk about those things, but I think it's important that you are who you are. I'm not running for preacher. I'm not running for pastor, but these are important public policy issues.

This is just a glimpse into his mind at work. To him it is not OK for the government to be involved in regulating the kinds of business institutions that nearly brought us to our economic knees, but it is OK to Rick Santorum to have big government telling us what we can do in the privacy of our own bedrooms.

One of the places in the world where sexual codes are enforced by religious police is Iran where couples can be severely punished for kissing in public. I am sure Santorum is not in favor of bringing sharia to America, though many of his followers accuse Barack Obama of wanting to do just that, but Santorum's views feel uncomfortably close to calling for an American form of religious law. We are a democracy, not a theocracy. He needs to reread his Constitution.