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Risk Santorum again
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Risk Santorum again Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and his wife Karen leave the Faith and Freedom Coalition rally in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Most Americans don’t share Santorum’s absolutist take on abortion. He’s out of step on women in combat, and he questions the values of the two-thirds of mothers who work. He’s even troubled by something as commonplace as birth control, for married couples. Even among a Republican presidential field anxious to please religious conservatives, his ideas stand out. Santorum was one of only two senators who voted against confirming the nomination of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. Santorum stated that his objection was to Gates's support for talking with Iran and Syria, because it would be an error to talk with radical Islamists. In 2006, Santorum introduced the term "Islamic fascism", while questioning "his opponent's ability to make the right decisions on national security at a time when 'our enemies are fully committed to our destruction.'" A supporter of enhanced interrogation, he said in 2011 that John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war, did not understand how the process works. Santorum introduced the National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005 which would have prohibited the National Weather Service from publishing weather data for free to the public where private-sector entities performed the same function commercially. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association was galvanizing support to lobby against the bill, but it never passed committee. The motivations surrounding the bill were controversial, as employees of AccuWeather, a commercial weather company which is based in Pennsylvania, donated $10,500 to Santorum and his PAC. The liberal advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington subsequently listed Rick Santorum as one of its "most corrupt politicians", citing the bill as one of several reasons. Santorum added a provision to the 2001 No Left Behind bill that would have provided more freedom to schools in teaching about the origins of life, including the teaching of intelligent design along with evolution.The bill, with the Santorum Amendment included, passed the Senate 91-8[42][44] and was hailed as a victory by intelligent design theory promoters. Before the bill became law, however, scientific and educational groups successfully urged the conference committee for the bill to strike the Santorum Amendment from the final bill. Intelligent design supporters in Congress then preserved the language of the Santorum Amendment in the conference committee report of the legislative history of the bill. The Discovery Institute and other intelligent design proponents point to this report as "a clear endorsement by Congress of the importance of teaching a variety of scientific views about the theory of evolution." In 2002, Santorum called intelligent design "a legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in science classes." By 2005, though, he had adopted the Teach the Controversy approach. He told National Public Radio, "I'm not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science classroom. What we should be teaching are the problems and holes ... in the theory of evolution." Later that year, Santorum resigned from the advisory board of the Christian-rights Thomas More Law Center after the Center's lawyers lost a case representing a school board that had required the teaching of intelligent design. Santorum, who had previously supported the school board's policy indicated he had not realized that certain members of the board had been motivated by religious beliefs. In an interview with the National Catholic Reporter, Santorum said that the distinction between private religious conviction and public responsibility, espoused by President John F. Kennedy, had caused "great harm in America." All of us have heard people say, 'I privately am against abortion, homosexual marriage, stem cell research, cloning. But who am I to decide that it's not right for somebody else?' It sounds good, but it is the corruption of freedom of conscience. In his 2005 book, It Takes a Family, Santorum advocates for a more "family values"-oriented society centered on monogamous, heterosexual relationships, marriage, and -raising. He is pro-life. He opposes same-sex marriage, saying the American public and their elected officials should decide on these "incredibly important moral issues", rather than the Supreme Court, which consists of "nine unelected, unaccountable judges.”[136] Santorum has stated that he does not believe a "right to privacy" is part of the Constitution; he has been critical of the Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which held that the Constitution guaranteed that right and overturned a law prohibiting the sale and use of contraceptives to married couples.[137] He has described contraception as "a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be,"[8] and stated in 2003 that laws should exist against polygamy, adultery, sodomy, and other actions "antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family". In 2003, Santorum became the subject of a controversy regarding homosexuality when he juxtaposed same-sex marriage with pedophilia and<b> bestiality </font></b>during an interview. Santorum rejects the mainstream scientific opinion on climate change, having referred to it as "junk science"; he also embraces common threads of the global warming conspiracy theory, believing that global warming is a "beautifully concocted scheme" by the political left and "an excuse for more government control of your life." He has stated a policy of "drill everywhere" for oil and that there is "enough oil, coal and natural gas to last for centuries" |
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