Santorum: Will Michigan Defeat End Insane Hypocrisy?

American’s are witnessing a concerted effort by social and so called Christian conservatives to put their limited interpretation of religious doctrine over doctors and subject other Americans to their narrow interpretations of religion and life.

[The View From Washington]

The results are in; the people have spoken, yet again. 

Romney defeated Santorum in Michigan 41% to 38% and in Arizona 48% to 26%. This could be the beginning of the end for yet another trumped up challenger for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Even with the Santorum campaign sending robo-calls urging Democrats to vote for him in the Michigan open primary, Santorum’s message, whatever it was, failed to carry the day. Santorum,  like those fallen phonies before him, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, et al, was crushed under the combination of the weight of his extreme conservatism and his obvious inability to articulate substantive solutions based upon the real issues impacting the real lives of real Americans.

While Americans are facing the every-day challenges of unemployment, home foreclosure, and record rates of poverty and hunger, Santorum and too many of his conservative brethren have shifted the debate to social and religious issues.

What should matter to all Americans is an unemployment rate of 8.3% (16% for African Americans).  Approximately four million families loosing their homes to foreclosure from 2007 to early 2012. 

Even though “the majority of people affected by foreclosures have been white families … borrowers of color are more than twice as likely to lose their home as white households. More than one in four African-Americans (27.4 percent) lived in poverty in 2010, compared to one in seven (15.1 percent) Americans and 20.2% of U.S. households with children were food insecure while 32.9 percent of African-American households with children suffered from food insecurity.

Instead of focusing on inclusive “bread and butter” issues to benefit all Americans Santorum, Newt Gingrich and others focus on divisiveness and wedge issues.  Santorum is trying to undermine Thomas Jefferson’s founding tradition of the “wall of separation between church and state…”  Santorum said this past Sunday that former President Kennedy’s famous 1960 speech on the relationship between  religion and government made him want to “throw up.” 

He also called President Obama a “snob” for having the unmitigated gall to promote higher education for all Americans and called US institutions of higher education “indoctrination mills.”  These extreme remarks forced Republican governors such as New Jersey’s Chris Christie to challenge him. “I think that’s probably over the line,” said Christie, adding that if Santorum was against the proposition of ensuring children are college educated or career ready, “I don’t think that makes any sense.”

As President Obama tries to quell another international outrage created by American insults to other cultures and religions Gingrich calls the President’s apology to the people of Afghanistan “surrender.” He stated “I find it very offensive as commander in chief that he is apologizing to the Afghans when in fact he should be demanding an apology from [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai…” He went on to say “…If you think the U.S. is inevitably weak and guilty and we should run around the world apologizing and appeasing, then Barack Obama is your candidate.”

Gingrich is ignoring the simple fact that the American military is guilty of burning these holy books and President Obama apologized as his predecessor George W. Bush did in 2008 when Bush apologized to Iraq’s prime minister following the American military’s desecration of a Quran by American military personnel.  You don’t win friends, influence people, and make America safe by desecrating people’s religious materials and urinating on the bodies of dead soldiers.

As Republican’s rail against the Obama administrations health care reform initiatives as “government mandated health care,” “government overreach,” and “intrusion into our private affairs” Virginia Republicans passed a bill to force women to undergo an ultrasound procedure before having an abortion even when as in most cases it is not a medical necessity.  After seeing the outrage from thousands of women who gathered at the Virginia State House, Gov. Robert McDonnell (R-VA) (possible Republican VP candidate) withdrew his support for the measure and requested the General Assembly ease legislation mandating ultrasounds before an abortion.

For as much as Republicans claim to despise “activist judges” and Gingrich say’s “…as president, he would abolish whole courts to be rid of judges whose decisions he feels are out of step with the country” their attack on Planned Parenthood, contraception, and abortion contradicts over 47 years of established Supreme Court precedent.  In Griswold v. Connecticut, (1965) by a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy by striking down a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of “any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception.”

Since Griswold, the Supreme Court has cited the right to privacy in several rulings, most notably in Roe v. Wade, (1973), where the Court ruled that a woman’s choice to have an abortion was protected as a private decision between her and her doctor. Why do small government, individual right loving conservatives want to empower the government to intrude into the sanctity of an individuals bedroom and the relationship with their doctor and/or God?

American’s are witnessing a concerted effort by social and so called Christian conservatives to put their limited interpretation of religious doctrine over doctors and subject other Americans to their narrow interpretations of religion and life.  For those who are against abortion the answer is simple, don’t have one. For those who are against same-sex-marriage the answer is simple; don’t marry someone who is the same sex as you are.
Hopefully, with Santorum loosing Michigan and Arizona some of this insanity and hypocrisy can end and rational Americans can get to the business of debating real issues and finding real solutions that will move all of America forward.  Keep religion where it belongs, in church and out of our politics.


Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Wilmer Leon,” on Sirius/XM channel 128 and a Teaching Associate in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, D.C.  Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: [email protected]. www.twitter.com/drwleon

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