Ferris: Santorum, the family and America

It's always encouraging to see people go from newspaper work to bigger and better things, like come within eight votes of winning the Iowa caucus.

He may not be touting this in conservative circles, but Rick Santorum wrote a weekly column for The Philadelphia Inquirer from October 2007 to July 2010. The pieces were often followed by letters to the editor that began, "How dare you publish. ..." Santorum knows how to get a conversation going.

Listening to his eloquent and emotional almost-victory speech last week, I wished we could take credit for honing his communications skills. But the truth is, when it comes to issues of life, family, and lifting people out of poverty, Santorum has usually been more than able to get his message across.

OK, not always. Sometimes, what comes out is more passion than well-formed thought, and as a conservative, he seldom gets the benefit of the doubt. Such comments prompted antipoverty crusader and U2 singer Bono, who had worked with Santorum on debt relief and AIDS issues for years, to tell then-Inquirer political reporter Carrie Budoff in 2006: "I would suggest that Rick Santorum has a kind of Tourette's disease -- he will always say the most unpopular thing. But on our issues, he has been a defender of the most vulnerable. . . . He was ready to stand up on Capitol Hill and say, 'This is important for America.' " Not everyone has been so generous. Over the years, Santorum has been vilified as anti-poor, antiblack, antiwomen, antigay, and many other things. His family, his values, even his very name, have come under assault. And those attacks will be revived and will increase this year as his profile grows. He couldn't have missed all that since he left the Senate. Yet he was willing to dredge it up again. And not because of what he is against, but because he is driven by what he is staunchly and unapologetically for: family. Santorum sees family as the cornerstone of healthy neighborhoods, nations, and even economies. Undermine families, and you threaten the common good.

Here's how he put it in his book, It Takes a Family: "Society's interest in protecting marriage goes beyond public recognition of a romantic relationship and making people feel accepted. I've made the case that the reason our society has such a strong interest in strengthening the institution of marriage is because marriage as we have traditionally understood it is far and away the best place for raising children -- who happen to be the future of any society. All of the 'legal incidents' of marriage built up over the years aim to secure a stable family in which to welcome children. . . . Marriage is the word for the way in which we connect a man, a woman, and their children into one loving family. It represents our best attempt to see that every child receives his or her birthright: the right to know and be known by, to love and be loved by, his or her own mother and father." He continues: "Remember the founding vision of the Constitution: freedom for the common good. In that vision, trust is more abundant and people are more willing to be selfless because they understand and expect that their fellow citizens are concerned about the common good, not just themselves. People can actually rely on each other, because they have themselves built up the habit of being reliable. Communities like this -- healthy communities -- make for healthier families, and healthier families make for better communities and a better country." And one more: " 1/8S 3/8trong families are the basis of lasting economic prosperity. . . . New human beings aren't simply new mouths to feed: They are new hands to work and produce, new minds to invent and discover. Children are assets, not liabilities. And just as there is no better way to raise children than in a healthy family, so there simply is no better mechanism for building, conserving, and distributing economic wealth than the natural family." Again, the forces of tolerance, and civility, and diversity will twist such notions and brand Santorum a hater of all they consider bright and beautiful. But essentially, what he did in his book, throughout his Senate career, and what he's doing on the campaign trail now in his own no-holds-barred style, is asking people to think through the changes they want to make.

Look at his exchange Thursday with New Hampshire college students who were attacking his stance on gay marriage. He wasn't being facetious when he challenged them to consider the consequences of profoundly altering marriage when he asked, "So are we saying that anybody can marry anybody else?" or "If you're not happy unless you're married to five other people, is that OK?" In other words, if gay marriage is simply a question of civil rights, how do you deny such rights to those who want to define marriage in still other ways? If adults' rights come first, what safeguards are in place for children? How does all this change affect communities, nations, economies? The students booed and shouted in response. But neither that nor calling Santorum names will stop him from raising legitimate questions on gay marriage and other social issues, as well as on jobs and the economy, tax reform and balanced budgets, and foreign affairs.

This may not all lead to the White House, but these are conversations worth having, and the former columnist certainly knows how to get a discussion going.

[webbox]Kevin Ferris is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Contact him at 215-854-5305 or kf@phillynews.com.[/webbox]