There are a couple of quotes in yesterday’s NYT Santorum profile that show why the religion-as-politics conceit is working so well for the Republicans these days. The Democrat that can offer a compelling response to Santorum’s line of thinking will… Well, I don’t know. Will end up on NPR? But anyway, this is it in a nutshell:

In the summer of 1999, Santorum gave a lecture at the Heritage Foundation in Washington titled ”The Necessity of Truth.” It can be read as a distillation of his philosophy. He began by identifying what he considers an oddity of American culture, the ”paradox,” he called it, ”of a people that strive to be both religious and nonjudgmental.” He then moved on to his central theme — that Americans of faith feel constrained from expressing their views in ”the public square,” where legislation and public policy are debated.

”How is it possible, I wonder, to believe in the existence of God yet refuse to express outrage when his moral code is flouted?” he asked that day. ”To have faith in God, but to reject moral absolutes? How is it possible that there exists so little space in the public square for expressions of faith and the standards that follow from belief in a transcendent God?”