Santorum and the HHS mandate

What a strange and fascinating scenario is playing out here.

Back on January 7 at the ABC New Hampshire debate, George Stephanopoulos (on a bet) grilled Mitt Romney on whether he believed states have the right to ban contraceptives. The question came out of left field. As Romney pointed out, no state, or any other entity, has suggested such a ban.

Turns out it was the exact wrong question. A couple of weeks later, the Obama administration decreed that the government has the right not to ban but to force nearly all employers to provide their employees with health insurance that covers, with no copay, not only contraceptives, but abortifacients and sterilization procedures as well. It has ignited a firestorm of protest. (Please note: The mandate applies not only to religious institutions, but to all employers, and by extension, to all employees, who will be required by law to purchase insurance. The mandate applies to everyone. It's an attack on individual conscience as much as it is on religious freedom.)

Enter Rick Santorum. As of this moment, he's the second most likely person to become Barack Obama's opponent in November. He also happens to be one of a very small number of Catholics, and an even smaller number of Catholic politicians, who actually embraces the Church's teaching on birth control and (as we traditional Catholics put it) lets God plan his family. I think it can be argued that his beliefs give him a special insight into the profound injustice of the Obama administration's decision to make everyone complicit in the culture of contraception. Santorum has advocated civil disobedience against the mandate. And in last night's post-victory speech, he made clear what he believes is at stake:

The real message -- the message that we've been taking across this country and here in Missouri is a message of what's at stake in this election. This is the most important election in your lifetime. This is an election -- we've seen it so evident just here in the last week. This is an election fundamentally about the kind of country you're going to hand off to your children and grandchildren, whether they are going to have the level of freedom and opportunity that you have.

And we have a president of the United States, as I mentioned, who's someone who believes he knows better, that we need to accumulate more power in Washington, D.C., for the elite in our country, to be able to govern you because you are incapable of liberty, that you are incapable of freedom. That's what this president believes.

And I -- and Americans understand that there is a great, great deal at stake. If this president is re-elected and if we don't have a nominee that can make this case and not be compromised on the biggest issues of the day, but can make the case to the American public that this is about the founder's freedom, this is about a country that believes in God-given rights, and a Constitution that is limited to protect those rights.

The president does not believe that. The president over the last few years has tried to tell you that he, in fact, the government can give you rights, the government can take care of you and provide for you. They can give you the right to health care, like in Obamacare.

But look what happens when the government gives you rights. When the government gives you rights, unlike when God gives you rights, the government can take them away. When government gives you rights, the government can tell you how to exercise those rights.

And we saw that just in the last week, with a group of people, a small group of people, just Catholics in the United States of America who were told you have a right to health care, but you will have the health care that we tell you, you have to give your people, whether it is against the teachings of your church or not.

I never thought as a first-generation American, whose parents and grandparents loved freedom and came here because they didn't want the government telling them what to believe and how to believe it, that we had a First Amendment that actually stood for freedom of conscience, that we'd have a president of the United States who would roll over that and impose his secular values on the people of this country.

And it's worse than that. When one of the Catholic bishops tried to communicate that through Army chaplains, the Obama administration said, no, you can't do that, no, because your language is seditious, and they made them change the language of a letter from a bishop to his people.

Ladies and gentlemen, freedom is at stake in this election. We need to be the voice for freedom.

And that founding document, the Declaration of Independence, at the end of that document, those founders signed their names. But the last clause of that document said we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Ladies and gentlemen, every generation of Americans doesn't create freedom, but they have, in many respects, a harder job. They have to maintain freedom.

Your charge tonight -- your charge tonight here in Missouri -- because we're not done yet with you here in Missouri. You've got a caucus coming up next month -- is to go out and pledge, pledge -- no, not your lives. Maybe your fortune. RickSantorum.com is the website.

But your honor, the honor that you stand on, on the backs and the shoulders of your ancestors. The people here in St. Louis, the people here in Missouri, the people across this country who sacrificed for this country, for the freedoms we have. America's honor, your honor is at stake. Go out and preserve the greatest country in the history of the world.

Thank you all, and God bless.

Not to get too far ahead of things here, but maybe in Rick Santorum we have an instance of the right man coming forward at the right time.

Many thanks to Pew Sitter for the big link.

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