I think all of this talk about faith in politics is overblown right now because Rick Santorum says a lot of really dumb shit. Look, I'm a registered Democrat and pretty much a liberal tree-hugger. That's just who I am. I've lived through many presidents, but haven't really been involved or paid attention to politics until around the time that Reagan won reelection. Bill Clinton, who for all of his faults was still a president who presided over the biggest economic expansion in history, was a person of faith. And even though he did some pretty dumb shit I thought he was a good president and didn't really care about his religion, mostly because he didn't wear it on his sleeve, but also because I agreed with his policies. So there was no reason for me to point fingers at his faith and claim that it was a problem.
Along comes George W. Bush. A guy who I vehemently disagree with across the board on policy. And suddenly, the temptation to lay the blame for my hatred of him and his crappy policies at the feet of his stated religious beliefs was pretty strong. But the fact is he is just a guy who had different political views than Bill Clinton and implemented policies I found repugnant in comparison to most of Clinton's policies and at the end of the day they were both still people of faith. One I agreed with and one I did not disagree with.
I think a lot of people get very uptight about this religion angle when the person being discussed is someone they disagree with and it's almost like a argument by proxy. It doesn't help when you have morons like Rick Santorum saying that church/state separation make him "want to throw up." But come on people, every president that anyone reading this has lived to know has been a person who goes to church. A person of faith. It's just that now you have a guy out there making some very provocative statements in an effort to whip up support from a relatively small segment of society and everyone's freaking out about it.
We're not going to get an avowed atheist president any time soon in the United States of America. That's just a fact of life. The best we can hope for is a person who will make good decisions based simply on what is best for the country. Nothing more, nothing less. If they want to believe what's written in the bible, that's on them. All I care about is that they make good decisions that help our country. I don't really care all that much if their decisions are informed in part by their faith. I didn't care about it when Bill Clinton was president, so I'm not going to be a hypocrite and make it a big issue if Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum or Obama for that matter are our president. To me, this is just a distraction.
Yes, people vote because they believe candidates share their faith. If you're a democrat like me and you think Obama didn't get a large swath of votes because of his faith then you are deluding yourself.