In a wide-ranging interview with Andrea Tantaros today, former Senator and GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum blasted the US Supreme Court for striking the Defense of Marriage Act down.
“I’m incredibly disappointed that the Supreme Court would continue a pattern of stepping in and making decisions that were very clearly left for the public and the Congress to make,” Santorum said. “The Founding Fathers established a country that said that the people are the one who get to make these decisions. Not five unelected people on the Supreme Court. And the federal government has a right in my mind to define what marriage is. Just like every state has a right to determine and define what marriage is. That these are not decisions that were to be implemented by the court. They’re to be handled by the collective will of the American public, that’s how our republic functions. And, when the Supreme Court steps in and says ‘No, we’re the ones who know best how to decide these things,’ I think it’s a real problematic issue in our society. And whether you’re on the left or on the right, the idea that a court should have the power to take this power away and freedom away from the American pubic to make these decisions to me is very, very disconcerting.”
When Tantaros turned the subject to the Senate immigration bill, Santorum warned that supporting it now could have consequences later for those Republicans who back the bill.
“Do you think that Marco Rubio has maybe ruined his chances to run for president with this immigration bill?” Tantaros asked. Santorum replied that many issues and candidates will come and go between now and 2016. Tantaros asked again, what impact may supporting the immigration bill have on 2016?
“The issue of immigration and respecting the rule of law in this country is a very, very important thing for Republican voters across the country,” Santorum said. “The idea that there are Republicans in Washington, D.C. who are going to say ‘Well, you know, the rule of law isn’t that important, the idea that we have people coming into this country illegally and we’re gonna basically treat them the same as people who came here legally’ is just not going to go over well in a Republican primary. I certainly respect senators from states with different opinions on that but I think there’s going to be certainly consequences for folks who don’t understand the importance of the respect for the rule of law that Republicans have.”
Santorum is currently CEO of EchoLight Studios, a film company that seeks to promote faith-based entertainment. But he told Tantaros that he is “certainly open” to running for president again.
Listen to the entire interview here.
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The Andrea Tantaros Show is produced by the Fox and Rice Experience for Talk Radio Network.
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