Rick Santorum: "I'm not just a 'tool.' I'm also a tool of my church."
Say this for Rick Santorum: At least he's honest about his agenda.
During an appearance on Sunday on Chris Wallace's Fox News Sunday, Rick Santorum again defended his "moral objection" to contraception:
WALLACE: You say that you believe that birth control is wrong. [...] Senator, the Centers for Disease Control say that 99 percent of the women in this country, between the ages of 15 and 44 who had sexual activity -- and this includes Catholic women, they say that 99 percent of them at some point in their lives have used artificial birth control.
Are you saying that all of those women have done something wrong?
SANTORUM: I'm reflecting the views of the church that I believe in. And we used to be tolerant of those beliefs. I guess, now, when you have beliefs that are consistent with the church, somehow or another, you are out of the mainstream. And that to me is a pretty sad situation when you can't have personal health belief.
But that's not what the issue is about. The issue is about whether the government can force you to do things that are against your conscience. And that's what we've been talking about on the road. We haven't been talking about my own moral beliefs. We've been talking about what the government can do in forcing people to change or violate those beliefs.
Uh huh. So Rick Santorum demands that our national health care policies adhere to the views of his church and his "personal health belief"—whatever the hell
that's supposed to mean, since most people would agree that actual medicine trumps "personal health beliefs"—but it's not about
his "moral beliefs." No, it's just about reflecting the views of his church. Because that's how Rick Santorum believes laws should made in this country.
Not unlike his fellow Republican, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who wrote a bill to restrict women's health care a day after hearing his priest in church rail against women's health.
Santorum is right about one thing, though. When most Americans have a favorable view of birth control, and almost all American women, including Catholic women, have at some point in their lives used birth control, his absolute opposition to contraception, even for married couples, and his insistence that his church's views should dictate our health care policies, is definitely out of the mainstream.