Riss. 24. Just some jigsaw puzzle pansexual nerd who writes and takes pictures. I'm creative but lazy, spiritual but still figuring it out, and trying to become a more well-rounded, socially aware person. This is just a gigantic hodge-podge of things (from video games to social justice to religion to art to fandom to gender and sexuality to adorable animals to INFINITY AND BEYOND).

thedailywhat:

Santorum Santorum Says of the Day: Speaking with George Stephanopoulos on this morning’s This Week, presidential candidate Rick Santorum was asked to clarify a statement he made last October, concerning JFK’s famous separation of church and state speech to Baptist ministers.

“Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up,” Santorum told an audience at the College of Saint Mary Magdalen.

“Why did it make you throw up?” inquired Stephanopoulos. “I don’t believe in an America where the separation between church and state is absolute,” replied Santorum. “The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and visions of our country.”

Later, on Meet The Press, Santorum doubled down on his position, telling host David Gregory that the separation of church and state was “not the founders’ vision.”

Of course, the principle of church-state separation is one that has been long-held by American lawmakers, statesmen, and presidents — including GOP deity Ronald Reagan.

“We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever,” Reagan said in a 1984 campaign speech. “Church and state are, and must remain, separate.”

Santorum’s most recent head-scratching comments follow a double-taker he made yesterday at a Tea Party Rally in Tory, Michigan.

“President Obama wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob,” Santorum told an applauding audience. “There are good, decent men and women who work hard every day and put their skills to the test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor.”

In addition to being disconcertingly anti-intellectual, Talking Points Memo also points out that Santorum’s remark contradicts his own support for universal higher education.

From his 2006 Senate campaign website:

In addition to Rick’s support of ensuring that primary and secondary schools in Pennsylvania are equipped for success, he is equally committed to ensuring the every Pennsylvanian has access to higher education.

[think / huffpo / tpm.]

I am getting so beyond sick of him. But you know, the scary thing is that I think this will give him a huge leg up with Republicans. 

As someone who believes in God, I’m for the separation of church and state. Whatever I may believe and however true or right I may find it, there is nothing about it that gives me the right to tell someone else what to believe. I don’t want the government meddling in anyone’s personal belief system, and I don’t think anyone’s personal belief system should be the driving force behind government. Because that’s what every person’s belief is. Personal. 

The religious Right really likes to go back to the stories of “founding fathers” and the Pilgrims and completely mangle them. And I’d like to remind them that the Pilgrims came to America to get away from an inter-tangled church and state. And many of the “founding fathers” they are so found of quoting were deists and agnostics. And on a philosophical level, even if you look at a united church and state as an ideal, it would only work in a “utopian” society where everyone believed exactly the same thing. And if you’re telling me that a “Christian” government is the ideal, is what the country needs, tell me how you even define Christian because there are close to 100 different denominations within Christianity that all differ on dogma and teachings and principles. Which one are we going with here?

I could go on and on. But looking at candidates like this, this presidential election scares me a lot more than any has in the past.