Last week, Rick Santorum spoke at an event hosted by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics to discuss his new book “Blue Collar Conservatives: Recommitting to an America That Works.” During the Q & A session, Santorum was asked how he balances his personal religious views as a Catholic on an issue like contraception with the needs to formulate public policy that impacts people who do not share those religious views.
Santorum said that there are a lot of things that he does not agree with or believe to be moral, but that does not mean that those things should necessarily be illegal and contraception is one of those issues.
His concern, he explained, is with the government “forcing people who have views like me to go out and use my money to buy those products” because doing so infringes upon his religious liberty. What the government should have done, he suggested, if it wants to ensure that everyone has access to contraception is to announce that contraception will be provided free of charge by the government.
“It would be less objectionable to me,” Santorum said, “for the government to go out and say we’re going to pay for all the pharmacies to stock contraception and give them out free. Am I paying for it indirectly? Yes, through my taxes, but I pay for a lot of things with my taxes that I don’t like.”
If the Obama administration’s goal was to ensure access to contraception, Santorum said, this is probably how it should have been implemented … but the Obama administration didn’t do that, leading Santorum to declare that the real goal of the contraception mandate was to force Christians to violate their religious beliefs and “bow to Caesar”:
