Democrats are praying for a Santorum nomination

That an American candidate’s commitment to the separation of church and state made Mr. Santorum want to vomit—and that this fact was something in which he took pride, and wanted to share with an audience—is telling. What it tells isn’t something the citizenry tends to find endearing.

Also noteworthy, and rapidly getting around, is his promise last October to “talk about things no president has talked about,” like contraception. “It’s not okay,” Mr. Santorum declared, because “it’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is contrary to how things are supposed to be.” Earlier, in his 2005 book, “It Takes a Family,” he opined that contraception is “harmful to women.”

Mr. Santorum’s views of license in the sexual realm can be interestingly detailed. In 2002, he blamed Boston and its culture for the sex-abuse scandal involving Catholic priests. It is, he wrote in a piece for Catholic Online, “no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.” He would also tell the Associated Press a year later, “I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts.” A remark that will require some translation in a campaign year. Good luck with that.