Although pushing a book, she nails Santorum . . .

[TaleWgnDg]

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Although pushing a book, self-declared "life long Republican" Professor Marci Hamilton nails Santorum . . . yeeee-ouch!

How Senator Rick Santorum, In Acting for His Church, Persistently Fails to Consider the Larger Public Good

By Professor and Attorney Marci Hamilton
findlaw.com's Writ Legal Commentary Series

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Thursday, Aug. 11, 2005

Senator Rick Santorum has been in the news recently, touting his faith-based views on public policy. (Santorum's faith is Roman Catholicism).

In my recent book, God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law, I document the harm that comes from elected representatives acting according to the dictate of religious lobbyists, without consideration of the larger public good. This is a severe defect in our representative government -- and Santorum is the best modern example.

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The Framers understood the corrupting influence of religious entities in the political process. No wonder, then, that there were only two references to religion at the Constitutional Convention: First, James Madison cautioned that America should avoid England's example - where religious entities had the power to determine the requirements for a person's belonging to the electorate. Second, Benjamin Franklin suggested that they hire a member of the clergy to say a prayer each morning. Because no one was willing to pay for the pastor, that suggestion was dropped immediately.

There was an abiding belief, at the Convention and among the Framers, that representatives should be "filters" of factions -- including religious factions, of which there was quite a variety at the time of the framing -- within the society, not simply stand-ins for such interests. The Framers' view was that only if factions, including religious factions, were filtered -- refocusing all requests to encompass serious inquiry into the public good -- could the system produce good laws and good government.

Rick Santorum is no filter, as the following concrete examples will illustrate.

The Roman Catholic Clergy Abuse Crisis in Boston

Across the country, the Roman Catholic Church has been under fire from prosecutors, litigators, and childhood sexual abuse victims for its "handling" of its pedophile clergy. It is now well-documented that bishops, archbishops, and cardinals did not report known pedophiles to police. Instead, they moved pedophiles between parishes within their dioceses, or traded these men between dioceses - not only allowing the abuse to continue, but ensuring that pedophiles could start afresh with new trusting parents, and new potential child victims.

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Santorum might have been part of the solution, but instead, he has chosen to be part of the problem - continuing the denial that has afflicted the Church to which he belongs. According to Santorum, the Boston Archdiocese was itself a victim - the victim of a lax moral and sexual culture in the liberal Northeast. Here are his words on Catholic Online in 2002 -- words he has stood by, in the intervening years:

It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning "private" moral matters such as alternative lifestyles. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.

In other words, Santorum is suggesting, Boston's pedophiles were foisted upon a defenseless Church.

Of course, in putting blame on the Northeast's liberal culture, Santorum never elaborates on how his theory could possibly explain Gilbert Gauthe in New Orleans, who abused dozens of boys, and who was convicted in 1985. Or Ronald Kos in Dallas, who was a predator of unimaginable proportions from 1981 to 1992. Or the various perpetrators who, it has been confirmed, committed abuse in Davenport, or Tucson, or Toledo, or Portland, or Spokane.

. . . read the complete findlaw.com Writ article at http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20050811.html

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