Rick Santorum called into Glenn Beck's radio program this morning, where he warned that if the Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage, it will be an unconstitutional establishment of religion that, when he becomes president, he will not enforce.
Citing the absurd claims made by David Barton on his radio program yesterday, Beck warned that if the Supreme Court strikes down gay marriage bans, the government will strip churches of their tax-exempt status and force them to perform gay marriages, and asked Santorum how he would respond to this if he is elected president.
"This is tantamount to government establishing religion," Santorum said. "When the United States government comes in and says this is what you are going to believe, this is how you're going to practice your faith, this is a new religion. This violates, in my opinion, the Establishment Clause in the Constitution that says that Congress shall make no law with respect to an establishment of religion. If the government goes around and tells churches what they have to believe in and what their doctrine is, that is something that is a violation of the First Amendment."
Santorum said that he holds out hope that the Supreme Court will rule against marriage equality advocates "because there is no way that the left will stop at mere tolerance, they will demand conformity, they will demand it from the church, they will demand it from every institution, they will demand it from businesses and there will be no tolerance to a different point of view on this issue."
But if the Supreme Court does legalize gay marriage, Santorum said that, as president, he will fight it.
"If they get it wrong and the consequences are what I suspect they will be toward people of faith," he said, "then this president will fight back."
