LIVONIA, Mich. -- Rick Santorum continued to talk about the separation of church and state one day before Michigan voters go to the polls on Tuesday, but insisted that this was not a distraction from discussing the economy and jobs but rather a core part of the argument he is making about economic and religious freedom.
Santorum also came close to calling Secretary of State HiIlary Clinton the "first lady," and then said that she and President Barack Obama are not for religious freedom but rather talk about "freedom of worship." Santorum said this term is an indication that Obama and Clinton want to tell churches and people of faith how they can live their lives when they are not in their place of worship.
Here's a transcript from this portion of Santorum's speech to the local chamber of commerce, in a hall next to the Basilica of St. Mary, an Antiochian Orthodox parish.
"You hear so much about separation of church and state. I'm for separation of church and state. The state has no business telling what the church to do. The separation of church and state that our founders believed in, which is what I just described, has now been turned on its head. And now it's the church, people of faith, who have no right to come to the public square and express their points of view, or practice their faith outside of their church.
"Listen to what the president and the first—not the first lady but the secretary of state said, when they talk about the freedom of religion. They don't use that term all the time. They use a different term: freedom of worship. We're here at a hall at St. Mary's. You go in the hall over there, you go in the sanctuary, you can talk all you want. You can have your religious faith. But if you come here, and you try to practice your faith, uh uh. No, then the government's going to tell you what to do. Is that how you interpret the First Amendment? Freedom of worship is not just what you do within the sanctuary. It's how you practice your faith outside the sanctuary. And at least in the America I grew up in, that used to be around; that was freedom of religion.
"All the reporters are about to say, 'There goes Santorum, talking about social issues again.' No, I'm talking about freedom. This is an election about freedom. It's about whether you buy into government can do things better for you than you can do for yourself. I don't buy into that. I've never bought into that."