On Wednesday, the hosts of “The View” wasted no time getting down to business with Rick Santorum, who Whoopi Goldberg rightly labeled “one of the most conservative candidates in the race.”

Goldberg’s first question dealt with the two of the most difficult topics for conservatives to discuss with liberals: abortion and same-sex marriage. She also framed the question in a way to entrap Santorum in negatives: “You want to ban all abortions, defund Planned Parenthood, ban gay marriage, oppose same-sex unions—and yet you want to govern all the folks in the United States, or are you just governing from — ?”

Rather than falling into the false narrative of explaining why conservatives want to take things away from people, however, Santorum brilliantly directed the conversation back to the real question of politics: what goods or ideals should our government support?

In the case of Planned Parenthood, Santorum responded, “I’m for reallocating every dollar that goes to Planned Parenthood and putting them in women’s health centers that actually provide more comprehensive services than Planned Parenthood.  Planned Parenthood for example doesn’t provide mammograms.”

The women of The View were shocked to learn that there are better women’s health centers—and ones that actually do mammograms. Santorum wisely took this chance to correct an often-repeated lie on a stage that reached huge numbers of women.

Raven Symone’s question was a tougher sell—why do you want to take “equal marriage rights” away from the gay and transgender community?

Again, Santorum did a great job reframing the question to ask instead, what is the purpose of marriage and why should government be interested in defining it as the union of one man and one woman?

“The greater purpose of marriage that society has always valued,” he responded, “is to bring men and women together so when they have children, there’s a permanent bond by which those children can be raised by their natural mother and natural father.  When you have a law that says, as the court says, that marriage has nothing to do with children anymore, what you’re going to have—you’re not going to have a society encouraging the behavior that is in the best interest of children and the future of society.”

In response to more questioning from Symone, Santorum tactfully took the argument deeper; not saying a same-sex couple couldn’t provide a positive and nurturing environment, but “the natural mother and natural father of that child is what historically, and I think sociologically look at today, is in the best interest of that child to be raised by the natural mother and natural father. It’s in the best interest of those parents. And that is really what we want to encourage. We want to encourage that type of bond.”

In a divisive political arena that desperately wants to emphasize what conservatives want to take away from us, Santorum courageously showed what conservatives want to give to society.

You can watch Santorum’s appearance below:

Anna Pfaff works for American Principles in Action.