The pious primary is underway
Mark Silk notes an interesting moment at the Republican
presidential debate Monday night in New Hampshire: Rick Santorum's take on
religion in public life sounds an awful lot like the one then-Senator Obama articulated in 2006 (free registration
required). Here's Santorum:
I'm some[one] who believes
that you approach issues using faith and reason. And if your faith is pure and
your reason is right, they'll end up in the same place.
I think the key to the
success of this country, how we all live together, because we are a very
diverse country--Madison called it the perfect remedy--which was to allow
everybody, people of faith and no faith, to come in and make their claims in
the public square, to be heard, have those arguments, and not to say because
you're not a person of faith, you need to stay out, because you have strong
faith convictions, your opinion is invalid. Just the opposite--we get along
because we know that we--all of our ideas are allowed in and tolerated. That's
what makes America work.
