So Long Baby Boy

Rick 'Baby Boy' Santorum is unremarkable in many ways, but he is Mitt Romney's chief rival for the GOP nomination and he does give you that creepy feeling that maybe, just maybe, some evil Balrog is stirring deep in the bowels of the earth.

Main exhibit: His remarks on JFK's classic speech on the separation of church and state. In a speech five months ago he blasted Kennedy:

Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up.

In the heat of the nomination battle, after is triple win in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri in February, he doubled down:

To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case? That makes me throw up.

Should we be worried that Jefferson's wall of separation is crumbling? I think not. In spite of this regressive strain, Americans are publicly more comfortable in their religious or non-religious skins than they once were. So rather than parsing his arguments, I would rather note the ironies of the situation. It is after all, the same politician who led the attack on President Obama's HHS rule on contraception crying for "religious liberty". But JFK's speech broke new ground for the liberty of Catholics and people of other faiths to pursue political office. The ironies don't end there.

Santorum is Catholic. But the vast majority of Catholic voters do not like him (he lost the Catholic vote in Illinois to Mitt Romney by 23 points). He stands instead on the same ground as the Catholic clergy, but is seen as more "severe" than them. Speaking of which, he does in fact have close ties with Opus Dei, the Catholic sect that trains ascetic albino assassins.

Instead Santorum courts born-again Christian conservatives, many of whom share his view that religion should play a larger role in determining public policy. How many? Apparently not enough to win a nomination.

In the closer coordination of church and state, the presumption is that the church would prevail. Moreover the "right" church (or beliefs) would prevail. Certainly, Islam would not be included as part of this righteous church. Indeed, their view is that Islam is a thinly tolerated scourge. It is also assumed that non-religious and anti-religious people would not push religion to the margins as in parts of Europe (eg, laïcité).

So why do I call Rick Santorum my 'Baby Boy'? I am not really sure actually. But perhaps it is to indulge in a further irony with this term of endearment.