Santorum rips Obama
Republican contender questions president’s ‘world view’
CUMMING (Georgia): Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum accused President Barack Obama of advocating a “world view” that is different from that of most Americans as he accused the Democratic incumbent of promoting the ideas of “radical environmentalists” and encouraging more abortions by requiring insurers to pay for prenatal tests.
Obama’s campaign in turn criticised the former Pennsylvania senator for unfairly attacking the president’s faith as the Republican nominating contest has pivoted from emphasising the economy to social issues.
A day after telling an Ohio audience that Obama’s agenda is based on “some phony theology, not a theology based on the Bible”, Santorum on Sunday said he wasn’t criticising the president’s Christianity.
“I’ve repeatedly said I don’t question the president’s faith. I’ve repeatedly said that I believe the president’s Christian,” Santorum told CBS television’s Face the Nation
“I am talking about his world view, and the way he approaches problems in this country. I think they’re different than how most people do in America,” he said.
Santorum said Obama’s environmental policies promote ideas of “radical environmentalists,” who, Santorum argues, oppose greater use of the country’s natural resources because they believe “man is here to serve the Earth”.
He said that was the reference he was making on Saturday in his Ohio campaign appearance when he denounced a “phony theology”.
When pressed by reporters after he made the initial remark on Saturday, however, Santorum made no mention of the president’s environmental policies.
Instead, he suggested that Obama practices one of the “different stripes of Christianity”.
The president is “trampling on a constitutional right”, Santorum said of the Obama’s recent decision to allow employees of religious schools and hospitals to have birth control covered by their insurance policies.
“It is imposing his ideology on a group of people expressing their theology, their moral code,” Santorum said at the First Redeemer Church. — AP