Recipe for Tyranny: Santorum's Unholy Church-State Alliance

THE NEWS: Rick Santorum, appearing on ABC's "This Week," defended a comment he made last fall, when he said he "almost threw up" after reading John F. Kennedy's comments about the separation of church and state. "I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state are absolute," he said.

THE PROVOCATION: Apparently Santorum doesn't understand that separation of church and state works both ways. Churches benefit, too. They reap a huge benefit from their tax-exempt status. If Santorum wants to eliminate that wall, would he agree that churches should start ponying up their fair share on April 15? Somehow, I doubt it.

Churches enjoy tax exemption under the First Amendment. The rest of us enjoy exemption from church rule under that same amendment. Sounds like a fair trade to me. The founding fathers evidently thought so. But Santorum wants to have his cake and eat it too. (This nearly always causes a bad case of indigestion, which is undoubtedly the real reason he "almost threw up.")

An irony in all this is that many churches ask their parishioners to pay what amounts to a tax: 10% of their gross income. One might argue that this "tithe" is voluntary, but is it really? Many people who attend such churches find YHWH a lot more intimidating than the taxman. When it's presented from the pulpit as a divine command, such folks aren't about to protest. Never mind that they can't feed their family properly or can't pay their bills. Personal responsibility takes a back seat to obeying the divine command.

And, not coincidentally, enriching a church that doesn't pay taxes itself.

Make no mistake, despite all the grousing about a secular society "persecuting" religious institutions, they enjoy a privileged position that few individuals can boast: They don't have to pay taxes. And because they don't pay taxes, they don't get a say in how the country is run. Seems like a pretty fair trade to me, one any pro-business Republican should be able to understand. If you don't hold stock in a company, you don't get a voice in choosing its board members.

Allowing churches to play a role in electing public officials would be like Walmart allowing Pfizer to choose its CEO. Not only is that patently unfair, it opens the field up to potential conflicts of interest. Pfizer could demand, for example, that Walmart pharmacies carry only Pfizer pharmaceuticals, and that it set prices according to Pfizer's guidelines (or whims).

There's enough conflict of interest in politics already, fueled by big-money Super PACs and huge corporate donors. Imagine if one adds churches to the equation. They don't even pay taxes on that 10% many of them rake in from their members. They would have a huge war chest of cash at their disposal to pay lobbyists, fund political action committees and spread their influence through the power of the almighty dollar.

Want to know where Santorum's ideas will lead? We have only to look at history. There was a time when the leaders of the Catholic Church used their influence to collect vast sums of money from the faithful. Mammon flowed to the church in the form of tithes, indulgences and the sale of holy relics. The church forbade priests from marrying, and collected large sums from the estates of noblemen who died without heirs. It enriched itself on payments from kings and nobles who sought its favor in political disputes.

In England, church and state were so completely intertwined that the monarch was (and still is) the head of the Anglican Church. This was part of the impetus for the American revolution. Separation of church and state isn't simply an article of our Constitution, it's an important factor in our very existence. Had England of the day adopted something akin to the First Amendment, the colonies might not have had the incentive they needed to form a revolutionary consensus.

Of course, there was also the matter of taxation without representation. That was a big factor, too. The colonists objected to paying taxes without having a say in how they were governed. Churches certainly can't make the same complaint: They don't pay taxes. King George III and the medieval popes didn't pay taxes, either. They enjoyed what amounts to representation without taxation - exactly the system Santorum is proposing for churches in the United States.

If the ramifications of his proposal were clear, few thinking people would support it. So he has tried to obscure the issue by setting up a straw man - maintaining that separation of church and state creates a climate where "people of faith have no role in the public square." Well, if that were the case, Santorum would not be allowed to express his current views as a private individual, let alone as a candidate for the highest office in the land.

Of course people of faith do and should have a role in the public square. To disqualify someone from public service or free expression simply because he/she believed in a god would disqualify 80% to 90% of all Americans. No one is advocating that, Mr. Santorum. No one. But in a party that no longer understands the distinction between corporations and individuals, it's no wonder you're trying to blur the lines between churches and individuals.

The First Amendment was written to protect individuals, and scuttling it because it makes Rick Santorum nauseated simply is not an option.

I suggest he take some Pepto Bismol, suck it up and get used to it. Or find a way to time-travel back to the court of King George III in 18th century Britain. I suspect the red coats of that era might fit him quite well.