Rick Santorum: Separation Of Church And State Is A Communist Plot

As I’ve mentioned several times, the religious right’s claims that it just wants a place at the table for socially conservative Americans gets exposed as a transparent lie whenever we hear its leaders in their unguarded moments. We got yet another textbook example of this over the weekend, when Rick Santorum opined that separation of church and state isn’t just anti-American–it’s pure Communism.

 

Rick Santorum on the stump in Iowa in 2011 (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
Rick Santorum on the stump in Iowa in 2011 (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Santorum was the guest on a conference call sponsored by E. W. Jackson, a prominent black conservative pastor who was the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2013, and his organization, Staying True to America’s National Destiny (STAND). When “William” from Chesapeake, Virginia got his turn, he told Santorum that “the far left, a. k. a. the Democrat Party” was actually working to implement several tenets of “The Communist Manifesto.” Among them? “The ascendancy or elevation of pornography, homosexuality, gay marriage, voter fraud, open borders, mass self-importation of illegal immigrants and things of that nature.” Santorum jumped in to say that William had missed one supposed Communist tenet–separation of church and state. “The words ‘separation of church and state’ is not in the U. S. Constitution,” Santorum said, “but it was in the constitution of the former Soviet Union. That’s where it very, very comfortably sat, not in ours.”

Apparently Santorum either forgot or (more likely) conveniently ignored a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to a group of Connecticut Baptists in which he declared that he intended for the First Amendment to erect “a wall of separation between Church & State.” And James Madison wrote that a series of early precedents showed that the “separation between Religion & Govt in the United States” was already a principle that was “strongly guarded.” So does Santorum think Jefferson and Madison were pinkos? Then again, he probably would have during Jefferson and Madison’s time. During the French Revolution, Federalist-leaning papers denounced Jefferson and Madison’s Democratic-Republicans as “Jacobins.” Calling someone a Jacobin in those days was about the same as calling someone a Communist today.

Earlier in the call, Santorum claimed that it was no accident that the very first right protected in the Bill of Rights was the right to free exercise of religion. He claimed that the Founders realized that without right to worship, he said, “nothing else really mattered.” And yet, later on, he suggests that separation of church and state isn’t a necessary corollary of that principle, but is nothing more than Communist propaganda. To answer your next question–Santorum is reading from a different Constitution. After all, it’s an article of faith on the religious right that the First Amendment only protects Christians.

Santorum is giving some serious thought to running for president in 2016, so you can add this to what is already a voluminous file. Believe it or not, there’s something more frightening than the prospect of Santorum as the GOP standard-bearer. The chances are pretty good that this sort of talk is being peddled to students in Christian schools and fundamentalist-oriented homeschooling programs across the country. In essence, those kids are probably being told that Jefferson and Madison were Communist sympathizers. The mind reels.

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Darrell Lucus.jpg Darrell Lucus, also known as Christian Dem in NC on Daily Kos, is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.