On March 10, Rick Santorum spoke at a church in West Chester on the importance of religious liberty. Before giving his speech, Santorum talked to the Cincinnati Enquirer, telling their reporter:
I think one of the most important things we have to understand when it comes to our school system is our schools have to educate Americans as to our founding principles and what they’re based upon. We are a country that’s based on the founding principles of western civilization. Now does that mean we shouldn’t respect all people from different religions and different places in the world? Of course you have to respect everyone, everyone individually. It doesn’t mean you have to respect their ideas, it doesn’t mean you need to adopt their ideas, it doesn’t mean you need to elevate their ideas to the same levels as the ideas that made our country unique in human history. I think that’s really the issue here. It’s not that we shouldn’t respect everybody or treat people with dignity. Or certainly respect their own holy days whether it’s Muslim or Buddhist or Baha’i or whoever else. It can be religious liberties for everybody but when it comes to a school, the school is trying to teach young people growing up in America what America is. What our foundational principles are, where they come from, and what makes America unique in the world. And I think there might be, at least some, well there’s certainly some confusion about that in America today and that’s one of the reasons I’m talking about that here today in Cincinnati, in West Chester, because I think there is a great amount of confusion about what our founding principles are and what religious liberty is in America and how central that is to the American enterprise.
The entire interview can be seen below:
