The Joke Is Over

I don't understand why Christians aren't more outraged.

Rick Santorum claims in his campaign to represent the moral high ground as a devout Christian, and yet he has taken it upon himself to decide the validity of other Christians' beliefs. Whether he's decrying modern protestants as having strayed from Christianity as he sees it or claiming in 2008 that there's no such thing as a liberal Christan, Santorum's Christian supporters should feel angry and betrayed by his preachy exclusion. It's a wonder how he thinks he has the right to, on the national political stage, decide what is a "real" Christian and what isn't, and it's an even greater wonder that the Christians he disowns are seeming to take his declarations lying down.

When Santorum began his presidential campaign a lot of attention was drawn to the redefinition of his last name, a Google problem that plagued him for most of the campaign. If it weren't for the ineptness of the other candidates he probably would never have recovered. Well, now the joke is over as he attempts to define Christianity for tens of millions of people.

The truly upsetting part of Rick Santorum's sermons is that they're not sermons - they're campaign speeches. The proper place for someone to argue about the nature of Christianity is in church, not on the road to the White House. The danger should be evident, especially after he announced that he doesn't believe in the separation of church and state while at the same time demonstrating why it's essential. Everyone suffers when a fringe ideologue tries to codify his narrow definition of faith into law. That's called theocracy, and we just spent 10 and a half years fighting it in Afghanistan.

What troubles me the most, however, isn't about Santorum at all. In difficult economic times humans tend to grow ever more attracted to extreme ideologies, as was the danger during the Great Depression - luckily FDR was a good enough statesman to lead the country through, while I don't think Obama has the same tact. The biggest problem is that Santorum is allowed - even encouraged - to make his offensive claims virtually unchallenged by the news media. Ever since Sarah Palin's "gotcha" questions, candidates have rarely been held accountable by the blatant lies, slanderous exaggerations, or simply outrageous language: whether it's barely veiled sexism, false claims about the poor dying due to lack of health care, explicit racism, or innumerable hate speeches against homosexuality. Such glaring attacks on women, poor and middle class people, non-whites, same sex couples, and Christians should not simply be allowed to stand. I don't understand why this man can not only scathingly despise people on a national forum but promise to enact that hatred into discriminatory law, a bully in the oval office, without being held accountable by journalists. It's sickening. It's like they're stenographers, publishing Santorum's verbal abuse word for word as if his saying it made it true.

It was a great relief to me that Mitt Romney won in Michigan yesterday. I don't like him very much, but I'm scared to death of Rick Santorum. I don't believe either of them have much of a chance against Obama in November, but whoever wins the primary will have a big impact on the course of politics to come. If Romney wins we will mostly see a debate over the economy and the role of government in alleviating the situation of the struggling poor and middle class, the difference between collective responsibility and extreme individualism. If Santorum wins the subjects will mostly be about the varying religiosity ("moral character") of the candidates and the degree in which religious conviction should influence public policy.

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