Part of me wonders if this is a joke, if Gorrell is poking fun at Santorum’s over-reliance on his religious faith in his campaign. But at the same time, I know Gorrell is a conservative, and his constant harping on how Israel is being threatened by Iran leads me to assume he’s an evangelical. So maybe he’s serious. Maybe he thinks Santorum is best qualified to be president because he will, in all ways, base his governing on the 10 Commandments.
Now, I have long had an interest in religion, so a lot of the issues with the 10 Commandments and holding them up as a system of morality are well familiar to me. But for those that don’t know about them, let me just raise a couple points:
1) The 10th Commandment forbids coveting anything you don’t have. Being jealous or envious of another’s possessions is verboten. But envy and desire are fundamental blocks of capitalism. People won’t strive for anything if they don’t have the desire for it, and advertising is based on the idea of making us want stuff we don’t have.
2) The 6th Commandment forbids killing, so the death penalty and war (two things Santorum supports) are out. There is the common argument that is actually forbids murder, and not all killing. But that brings up
3) the 4th Commandment, keeping the Sabbath holy. In the Old Testament it was forbidden to work on the Sabbath, and there is the story of a person who was seen picking up sticks and others were commanded to stone him for it. Which they did. Is that what Santorum will propose? A law forbidding anyone from working on Sunday? Think of how much our economy will suffer if people can’t do any shopping or enjoy many forms of recreation (watching TV, going to the movies, going out to eat) for half the weekend because all the restaurants and stores will have to close, and no one will be around to keep the TV and radio stations operating for 24 hours.
And does ‘no working’ include things like ‘don’t mow your lawn or paint your guest room?’ How would that be enforced?
4) Or let’s go to the beginning. 1st Commandment: ‘I am the Lord, thy God, who delivered you out of Egypt.’ What does that have to do with running America? What does this have to do with the economy, foreign policy, education, our crumbling infrastructure, the deficit, etc?
I already know the answer Santorum (and probably Gorrell) would give: America needs to reclaim its values and its faith and then God will fix everything for us. Maybe they wouldn’t use those exact words, but that would be the crux. That if we all just pray or go to church all the problems will be taken care of. We’ll all become moral, upstanding people and our nation will become great again.
And Gorrell and Santorum probably believe that. Which just makes me even more certain that Santorum should only be allowed in the White House if he buys a ticket to take a tour of it.
Let’s not forget that the first commandment would effectively mean overriding the First Amendment, making the US into a (Catholic) Theocracy with all other religions, and atheism illegal.
