Rick Santorum left his trademark sweater vest in Illinois when he came to pound the pavement in Louisiana last week.
Santorum proved his popularity among Louisiana voters, running away with the Louisiana primary after receiving 49 percent of the vote.
His whistle stop tour took him from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette to Alex Box Stadium to his most recent gaffe during a sermon at the Greenwell Springs Baptist Church.
Santorum leapt to his feet and applauded after Rev. Dennis Terry thundered out a speech that would have made Benito Mussolini proud.
“Get out! We don’t worship Buddha, we don’t worship Muhammad, we don’t worship Allah!” Reverend Terry declared before going on to bash the gay community and “lay hands” on candidate Santorum while praying for his campaign.
Classy.
Rev. Terry, I’ll forgive your numerous theological misnomers (Muslims don’t worship Muhammad, nor Buddhists worship Buddha) but we do, in fact, worship differently than you do – and we’re Americans, too.
Voting Americans.
And I think I’ll stick around, although gentlemen such as yourself and the former senator from Pennsylvania make me wonder how advisable that is.
Santorum has had trouble keeping his foot out of his mouth when it comes to the topic of religion and its place in America. It seems a week can’t pass without Santorum saying something absurd about separation of church and state, JFK or President Obama’s faith.
When criticized for the Catholic faith he and Santorum share, President Kennedy said he did not believe in an America where the Pope could command a Catholic president nor a reverend tell his parishioners how to vote.
When asked about Kennedy’s now-famous speech, Santorum said it made him want to vomit.
I guess the Constitution and its pesky amendments make Santorum sick.
That’s the sort of quality we want in a president: revulsion toward our basic principles.
Furthermore, Santorum isn’t just disgusted by JFK and our founding fathers, as he recently called President Obama’s brand of Christianity a “phony theology.”
I’m not sure who appointed Santorum arbiter over what does and does not qualify as proper Christianity, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the Pope.
It’s all well and good to vote for someone who shares your religious views, but these candidates are not running to be reverend-in-chief. They are running to be the leader of the free world.
The nation they will lead consists of millions of Jews, Hindus, Christians, atheists and a myriad of faiths and philosophies that could fill this entire newspaper.
And make no mistake about it: These values do reach to our core.
James Madison fought long and hard to ban oaths of religion during the writing of our Constitution.
Why? He had witnessed the state of Virginia, formerly a British colony, throw Baptists in jail for being of the wrong sect.
Madison described religious freedom as “the lustre of our country” – that is to say, a hard-fought achievement and exceptional aspect of America.
Madison wasn’t alone.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in his autobiography that he and many of the founding fathers refused to have any overt reference to a single faith included in the preamble, so as to enfold “within the mantle of [the United States’] protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”
So no, Mr. Santorum and Rev. Terry, we will not “get out” – nor should we.
Men far better than you, men who did far more for our country, made a place for us here. You are doing them an injustice by ignoring that.
Nicholas Pierce is a 22-year old history junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_nabdulpierc.
 
 
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Contact Nicholas Pierce at [email protected]