Hello blog readers. It’s time for another instalment of “Your Republican Presidential Candidates.” This week is Rick Santorum. Now, who is Santorum? Well when you do a Google search of Rick Santorum “gay” shows up next to his name. Why you may ask? Activist Dan Savage decided to go after Santorum when he equated being gay to paedophilia and bestiality. He has an in your face style of politics, and because of that Santorum has a lot of work cut out for him, he doesn’t always play to the rules of the party and in turn, lost his seat as senator by 18 points. Santorum is the only recognized practising Catholic in the list of candidates which gives him a unique position among the other candidates.
Santorum is for strong “traditional family values.” That would be no abortion, no partial birth abortion, no to gay marriage, things of that nature. This is where most of his Christian support comes from. He wrote a book in 2005 called It Takes a Family that outlines a lot of his political beliefs. Santorum believes that undocumented immigrants should be immediately deported and that we should enforce existing immigration laws. Also that English should be the United States’ official language. Santorum believes intelligent design should be taught in the classroom, and has fought for the “Workplace Freedom Act,” which required all employers to allow employees to have time off to observe religious holidays and to wear religious articles, if it does not cause undue hardships.
Santorum is a fighter for family and a belief in a tradition that he feels will hold the country together. He has a problem though with sticking his foot in his mouth. His ideas and beliefs are not extremely far from what mainstream Republicans believe, but the way that he says things and the way that he allows himself to be a talking point is not the way a future president should act.
