Rick Santorum goes after President Obama’s secular values in Ohio. Read below from Politico and then get my quick take.
Rick Santorum made comments at an event while campaigning earlier today as he spoke at an Ohio Christian Alliance event.
Slamming the president's agenda on a range of points, Santorum said the agenda is "not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology."
When reporters questioned what he meant later, Santorum stood by the comments.
"The Catholic church has a theology that says this is wrong, and he’s saying, 'no I’ve got a different, I’ve got a different – you may want to call it a theology, you may want to call it secular values, whatever you want to call it, it’s a different moral values. And the president of the United States is exercising his values and trumping the values of the Church."
He added, "If you don’t want to call it a theology, I’m fine, you can have them let me know what they want to call it, but it is a different set of moral values that they are imposing on people who have a constitutional right to have their own values within the Church, and that’s not a new low. That’s a reflection of exactly what….it is a new low. I should go back, it is a new low. The president has reached a new low in this country’s history of opressing religious freedom that we have never seen before. If he doesn’t want to call his imposition of his values a theology that’s fine, but it is an imposition of his values over a Church who has very clear theological reasons for opposing what the Obama administration is forcing on them.”
And then, “He is imposing his values on a church that has theological reasons for, and moral reasons for not allowing this type of care to be given through their institutions.”
He insisted he wasn't suggesting Obama, a Christian who has spent years getting hit with false rumors that he's a Muslim, is less of a Christian.
“No one’s suggesting that," he said. "I’m suggesting, obviously we all know in the Christian church there are a lot of different stripes of Christianity. I’m just saying he’s imposing his values on the church and I think that’s wrong...If the president says he’s a Christian he’s a Christian.”
An Obama spokesman, before the press conference, called the remarks about theology "the latest low in a Republican primary campaign that has been fueled by distortions, ugliness, and searing pessimism and negativity."
This is the difference between Santorum and Romney. Romney would never go this far. He would play it close to the vest. Not Santorum, and its part of the reason why evangelicals and the Tea Party like what he has to say. They are looking for a bold candidate at this point in time.
Santorum is coming across as bold. Romney is coming across as blah.