Inconvenient truths

NEWS | Can Rick Santorum's candidacy survive his honesty on moral issues? | Marvin Olasky

AFP/Getty Images/Photo by Don Emmert

The candidacies of Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney are implicitly challenging voters with hard questions about the nature of society and enterprise.

WORLD has long appreciated Santorum's energy and commitment: See a profile and interviews on April 30, 2005; Oct. 23, 2010; and Aug. 13, 2011. His dogged trek through Iowa's 99 counties earned him a solid alternative-to-Romney position. Now he's the subject of a new political experiment: Can a candidate survive when his honesty has brought him fierce and unceasing opposition from gay activists?

Santorum has voiced more than any other candidate the understanding that moral issues are not purely private affairs, because if families weaken, government gets bigger. Uncared-for children mean more social workers. Adultery means more courts. One household becoming two generally means more poverty. Unmarried motherhood generally means more welfare.