‘This Is A War’ Rick Santorum Says About Liberals, Christian Persecution, And His New Film

Failed GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum is in business with the American Family Association, and talked with AFA spokesperson Bryan Fischer about the “war” he sees liberals waging against Christians, against marriage, and those “re-education camps” he says Christians are being sent to.

Rick Santorum‘s full time job no longer is touring the country with his wife and seven children. Santorum, after a failed career as a U.S. Senator and then failed attempt to win the Republican presidential nomination, is now the CEO of a Christian movie production company. EchoLight Studios produces “family values” films like last Christmas’ “The Christmas Candle,” which grossed $68,655 its opening weekend and a reported $2.2 million overall.

Santorum’s studio, according to Right Wing Watch, has a business partnership with the anti-gay hate group American Family Association. He sat down with AFA’s Bryan Fischer today to talk about his next film, “One Generation Away: The Erosion of Religious Liberty.” It’s name, of course, comes from a quote by Ronald Reagan.

The film “draws heavily from the right-wing narrative about supposed anti-Christian persecution in America,” Right Wing Watch reports, adding, “Santorum told Fischer that business owners who refuse service to gay customers have been sent to “reeducation camps” and that pastors in the U.S. may soon be thrown into jail or martyred.”

Santorum also told Fischer that the “majority of Americans still believe in marriage.” That would be, according to Santorum’s false facts, “traditional” marriage, excluding of same-sex couples. Of course, between 56 and 59 percent of Americans believe in same-sex marriage, but don’t tell Rick.

“The fight to protect our religious freedom is paramount to our country’s future prosperity,” Santorum says in a Time magazine article titled, “Santorum Film: American Believers Could Face Nazi Fate.”

The comparison to Nazi Germany is bound to raise eyebrows, if not criticism. It is not an uncommon analogy for Santorum—as Dana Milbank wrote in 2012, “Santorum sees Nazis everywhere: in the Middle East, in doctor’s offices and medical labs, in the Democratic Party, and now in the White House.” Sheets explains the inclusion of the Nazi comparison this way: “This example was used to illustrate the extreme consequences that can occur when freedoms begin to erode unchecked. The ‘Church’ in Germany sat by as their freedoms and the freedoms of the Jews were restricted. By the time they woke up, it was too late. America is NOT Nazi Germany nor is there an inference in the movie that our government is taking that extremist position.”

Santorum’s film is filled with cameo appearances by leaders of the anti-gay religious right. “One Generation Away, Time notes, “will include interviews with more than 40 political, business and religious leaders, including Steve and David Green of Hobby Lobby, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Jennifer Marshall of Heritage Foundation, Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, and Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association.”

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Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr