For all his protestations to the contrary, Rick Santorum does not believe in religious freedom.
As I understand it, and as I think most scholars understand it, it means that our government is neutral with regard to any particular religion, while protecting the rights of all to practice their own religion or their lack of religion.
There are a few limits that would restrict some claims to how that religion is practiced, including the general principle that it cannot supercede other laws or trample on others' rights. For example, a claim that human sacrifice is part of their religious rites would not be tolerated. Claims that using illegal substances (like peyote) is part of Native American religious rites is a murkier areas that may require adjudication by the courts.
But the essence of neutrality was the core of John F. Kennedy's landmark declaration in 1960 when his Roman Catholicism became an issue in the presidential campaign. He said:
Rick Santorum said that this makes him want to throw up. He seems incapable of understanding that official neutrality is what guarantees personal religious freedom. He should think about the possibility that, if we allow him to impose Roman Catholic beliefs, then he would be susceptible at some other time to a president who might want to impose Muslim beliefs on him.I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
Some of us still want our democratic nation to be defined in the reality-based world. Santorum apparently does not agree. If he gets nauseated by Kennedy's noble statement, he would probably barf his insides out at my contention that our nation's founding principles stem far more from Enlightenment ideals than from Christian beliefs, although there are certainly some principles shared by both.
Ralph
The abortion issue is perhaps the most fraught example of this difference. It is not that pro-choice Americans want to kill babies; we merely have a different concept of when an embryo becomes a person.
ReplyDeleteThe notion that a person with a soul is created at the moment of conception is a belief, influenced by one's moral, religious, and philosophical views; it is not a scientific fact.
The scientific name for the initial form created by the union of a spermatzoon and an ovum is a zygote, which divides and divides until the 5th day when it become a blastocyst. Only after further division and development does it become an embryo -- and only much later becomes what we call a fetus.
When this entity actually "becomes a person" is more of a philosophical/religious question than a scientific fact. But Santorum and the Roman Catholic Church, and many evangelical Christians (though not all) insist that it is a fact.
The results are in now, and they show that Santorum's extreme religious positions did not win the Catholic vote for him.
ReplyDeleteExit polls show Catholics voting for Romney 43% to Santorum 37%. The news clip did not report the evangelical Protestant vote, however. It might have helped him there.