Rick Santorum, Trying to Become the Second Catholic President, is Injecting Faith into the Presidential Discussion

Yesterday marked the anniversary of John F. Kennedy's famous speech on the separation of church and state.  Contrast Kennedy's noble speech about religious intolerance and the separation of church and state with Rick Santorum, who is trying to become the second Roman Catholic president of the United States.  The speech, to the University of St. Thomas, about injecting faith in the public square, was titled "A Charge to Revive the Role of Faith in the Public Square" and billed as a "challenge" to Mr. Kennedy's remarks a half-century ago.  The event was organized through the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a group that applies Judeo-Christian values to public policy.  Today, Peter at Right Wing Watch has an excellent summary of Santorum's rhetoric.

Last week, Santorum traveled to Houston to make his own speech, which repeated standard Religious Right straw-man arguments about supporters of church-state separation trying to ban religious people from public life.  Those are old and oft-told lies. What’s new is the Catholic Santorum pinning the blame for America’s supposed descent into secularism squarely on JFK.  Santorum reprised those remarks on Saturday night at Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition conference, with some additional Tea-infused red meat: Government entitlement programs are the equivalent of a schoolyard pusher getting kids hooked on drugs.    If “Obamacare” is not repealed, America will cease to be America. It will be France.  Source

Rick Santorum's entire speech, in which he quotes two popes, here.