“Get Out!” Santorum, Perkins and the Religious Right’s Vision of America

by Peter Montgomery

March 19 was a lousy day for Rick Santorum’s campaign. Reporters repeatedly questioned him about his Sunday evening appearance at Tony Perkins’ home church, where, as People For the American Way’s Right Wing Watch blog reported, Santorum applauded a pastor who screamed that America was a Christian nation and those who didn’t like it should “Get out.” It was America’s Christian faith that made it a great nation, Terry said, and America’s biggest problem is that we now fear men more than we fear God.

Santorum’s awkward response when questioned about Terry’s comments was that he wasn’t really listening all that closely to the pastor introducing him, and didn’t agree with all of his comments. By the end of the day, some journalists were moving on to Santorum’s foot-in-mouth assertion that the economy wasn’t the main issue in the campaign and that he wasn’t worried about the unemployment rate.

While the media may understandably focus on Santorum’s garbled economic message, his Sunday evening appearance is worth a longer look — for what it tells us about Santorum and the Religious Right movement that is propelling his campaign.
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