Santorum Defends 'Phony Theology' Remarks, Doubles Down On Religious Critique Of Obama

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum speaks during a Tea Party rally February 18, 2012 in Columbus, Ohio.

A more congenial Rick Santorum doubled down on several controversial, and religiously laden, remarks in an interview Sunday morning on CBS's "Face the Nation," where he defended his recent claims that prenatal testing results in abortions, that federally provided education was "anachronistic," and that President Obama's policies are not "based on the Bible."

"I've repeatedly said I don't question the president's faith," Santorum told host Bob Schieffer, denying what some have said was a signal that Santorum had challenged the legitimacy of Obama's Christianity. "I've repeatedly said that I believe the president's Christian -- he says he's Christian. But I am talking about his worldview, the way he addresses problems in this country, and they're different than most people view it in America."

In a speech to Tea Party conservatives on Saturday in Columbus, Ohio, Santorum had dismissed Obama's politics as being based in "some phony theology."

"It's not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs," Santorum said. "It's about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology."

An incredulous Bob Schieffer began his interview with Santorum Sunday by asking, "What in the world were you talking about?"

"I was talking about the radical environmentalists," Santorum said, suggesting that they believe man should protect the earth, rather than "steward its resources." "I think that is a phony ideal. I don't believe that's what we're here to do ... We're not here to serve the earth. That is not the objective, man is the objective."

Earlier in the day on Saturday, Santorum had also said that health insurance plans shouldn't be required to cover prenatal testing, because that testing results in more abortions, as well as contending that government-run public education was "anachronistic."

"Free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and therefore less care that has to be done, because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society," Santorum told the Ohio Christian Alliance conference.

Asked by Schieffer about his claims that prenatal testing leads to more abortions, Santorum insisted that this was "a fact."

"We're talking about specifically prenatal testing, and specifically amniocentesis, which is a procedure that actually creates a risk of having a miscarriage when you have it, and is done for the purposes of identifying maladies of a child in the womb. And in many cases -- and in fact in most cases -- most physicians recommend, if there is a problem, they recommend abortion," Santorum said.

Santorum had said that because of this trend, health insurance providers should not be forced to make the procedures available free of charge.

Santorum also told Schieffer that government-provided education was not working and that the process ought to be customizable, like buying a car.

"I'm saying that local communities and parents should be the ones in control over public education, certainly not the federal government, and I think the state governments have not done a particularly good job in public education, either," Santorum said.

Buying a car, by contrast he said, is "designed to meet the needs of a customer. Federally or state-run education is not designed to meet the needs of the customer."

Speaking earlier on ABC's "This Week" about Santorum's remarks, Obama campaign aide Robert Gibbs called his rhetoric "well over the line."

"I think it's time in our politics that we get rid of this mindset that if we disagree, we have to disqualify each other," Gibbs said.

"I think if you make comments like that, you make comments that are well over the line," he added. "I think the GOP race has been, in many cases, a race to the bottom."

Correction: An earlier version of this story inaccurately quoted Bob Schieffer as asking Rick Santorum, "What in the world were you thinking?" This has been corrected to read "What in the world were you talking about?"

Comments

[chisibo]

10:57 AM on 04/07/2012

...we now have governments in charge of the country with only 41% votes of 40% of actual voters.
My sums aren't great but on my reckoning that means less than 10 million of our 60 million population actually determine who is to govern the country. My nephew in Australia who believe's our political system is the best in the world???? What an undemocratic world we live in.....

mmmmmmmmmm???????

[chisibo]

10:50 AM on 04/07/2012

Returning to the North/South theme of this little story, the north vote labour and the south vote Tory and no matter what I do is going to make any difference. And I think it is about time (just like the Scottish people) that we actually went our separate ways. I say this because our political process is, and will never be, democratic. How is it that a Union is forced to 75% - 90% in favour of action etc. when we have governments running the country on less that 42% of the vote. And as attendances drop because they disenfranchised have no one to vote for....

[chisibo]

10:44 AM on 04/07/2012

Unlike Germany, where all those going to loose there jobs in mining/related businesses (because there is a few) took up traineeships/promised alternative employment, British miners/railwaymen and steel workers were dumped on the dole queue. Many peoples' lives, hopes and ambitions were destroyed by what occurred during that period and some individuals have not worked since the mines closed. It's not through the lack of trying, there just is never enough work.

[chisibo]

10:37 AM on 04/07/2012

Why did M Thatcher not sack all the management and executives when she privatised all the failing nationalised industries. The reason why she did not because they were the same people that ensured that the required documents proved that they were actually failing companies. I thought it is the fault of the management if a business failed?

what was not calculated would be the cost of all those people forced onto the dole queue and the ruin of many communities. Its not only the cost in benefit terms but the costs required because of the affects in which the privatisations' took place.

[chisibo]

10:29 AM on 04/07/2012

Liken those people attending church to those who still vote at both local and general elections...attendances both incline yet those who still attend are still optimistic. The government unlike god tax the mass's in order to benefit the few while god depends on the commitment of parishioners/attendee's. Anyone can enter a church et al and seek solace and pray yet here I am in the north and no matter what I say, do, think will have any on government thinking/policies. When Mr Cameron's right hand man went to America to sulk because the Civil service would not let them do as they please. I thought having mechanism's in place to ensure we never had another political dictator like of the recent past in nearby countries was the correct way to go but it seems the Thatcherite Tories feel that the political thinking and processes will never go as far right as they would wish.

[chisibo]

10:08 AM on 04/07/2012

Germany became the first nation in the world to adopt an old-age social insurance program in 1889, designed by Germany's Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. The idea was first put forward, at Bismarck's behest, in 1881 by Germany's Emperor, William the First, in a ground-breaking letter to the German Parliament. William wrote: ". . .those who are disabled from work by age and invalidity have a well-grounded claim to care from the state."

[chisibo]

10:08 AM on 04/07/2012

Bismarck was motivated to introduce social insurance in Germany both in order to promote the well-being of workers in order to keep the German economy operating at maximum efficiency, and to stave-off calls for more radical socialist alternatives. Despite his impeccable right-wing credentials, Bismarck would be called a socialist for introducing these programs, as would President Roosevelt 70 years later. In his own speech to the Reichstag during the 1881 debates, Bismarck would reply: "Call it socialism or whatever you like. It is the same to me."

[chisibo]

10:08 AM on 04/07/2012

Economists still argue about what Keynes thought caused high unemployment. Some think he attributed it to wages that take a long time to fall. But Keynes actually wanted wages not to fall, and in fact advocated in the General Theory that wages be kept stable. A general cut in wages, he argued, would decrease income, consumption, and aggregate demand. This would offset any benefits to output that the lower price of labor might have contributed.

[chisibo]

10:08 AM on 04/07/2012

John Maynard Keynes - Keynes’s General Theory revolutionized the way economists think about economics. It was pathbreaking in several ways, in particular because it introduced the notion of aggregate demand as the sum of consumption, investment, and government spending; and because it showed that full employment could be maintained only with the help of government spending

[chisibo]

10:07 AM on 04/07/2012

Labour to get into power were forced to adopt and maintain the previous governments policies and ideals and now we have Mr Cameron (Thatcherite/Liberal) linked up with a weak liberal/wet Tory collaboratives who will do more damage to the to this land and its social fabric all to ensure monetarism is maintained. What could happen is that we could take up the Keysian Liberal ideology of the 1030s when he said you need individuals in good jobs with good pay.

[chisibo]

10:07 AM on 04/07/2012

Personally I believe that all politicians should refrain from trying to score political points against each other and begin to spend more time putting in place constructive policies/legislation and services to meets the needs of citizens....something they talk a lot about but when in office they only seek to help those who they themselves can benefit from. How is it becoming the prime minister or the president results is such individuals becoming millionaires who are ultimately sponsored/backed/lobbied by those in power/who possess the most wealth? Only those with the backing of the conglomerates can afford to run for president and what do the conglomerates want in return....an environment where they can make even more money while misery, poverty and disadvantage is on the increase. Start looking after the citizens and not yourselves. In the UK many working class/socialist minded individual do not vote any more as all three political parties are finding the middle ground. There is no alternative in the UK because in the 1980s/M Thatcher era/to this day, political parties began to take up the other political parties ideology and theories. M Thatchers' political ideologies were steeped in liberalism. .

[chr1st1an]

01:32 PM on 03/03/2012

Which Protestant in this country, which fled persecution of Cathlics not too long ago, would be happy that NO Supreme court justice is a Protestant, and that we now have a Catholic running for president?

[487]

06:39 PM on 03/02/2012

If Santorum claims prenatal testing leads to abortions, then tax breaks for corportions leads to greed, job outsourcing and tax fraud. Give me a break!! Those who have this service are NOT savages. His comment "in a way" claims they are.

[chr1st1an]

02:08 PM on 02/25/2012

orixaguy wrote:
“"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814”

http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefLett.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all

Thomas Jefferson never wrote that. This is WAY out of context, only a part of which follows:

Here we find "ancien scripture" converted into "Holy Scripture," whereas it can only mean the ancient written laws of the church. It cannot mean the Scriptures, 1, because the "ancien scripture" must then be understood to mean the "Old Testament" or Bible, in opposition to the "New Testament," and to the exclusion of that, which would be absurd and contrary to the wish of those who cite this passage to prove that the Scriptures, or Christianity, is a part of the common law.

[orixaguy]

09:52 PM on 02/24/2012

Theology? Santorum is obviously not familiar with the Vatican's teaching the environment, climate change, the poor, or evolution.
Never mind the fact that the book of Exodus blatantly states that if you terminate the life of a fetus, it is NOT murder.

[chr1st1an]

01:37 PM on 03/03/2012

According to Exodus, abortion IS murder, it has been murder under all world religions for MILLENNIA, and depending on which polls you trust, 57-85% of Americans STILL view it as murder.

Even the Catholic Church DID correctly view it as murder until about 500 years ago.