Signs and Wonders: Santorum warns GOP not to cave

Homosexual marriage trendy. Former presidential candidate Rick Santorum said this week that homosexual marriage is a trendy issue and that Republicans should not cave in on what he called a “foundational” issue. He said support of homosexual marriage would be “suicidal” for the GOP. Santorum made the statements in an interview with the Des Moines Register. Now, in case you are geographically challenged, Des Moines is in Iowa. And in case you’re politically challenged, the Iowa caucuses are less than three years away, which in modern political terms means just around the corner. Santorum said that 30 years ago, when a few Republicans came out in favor of abortion, “You could go back and read stories, oh, you know, ‘The Republican Party’s going to change. This is the future.’ Obviously that didn’t happen.” Today, the Republican Party and the nation are more pro-life today than then. He concluded: “I think you’re going to see the same stories written now, and it’s not going to happen. The Republican Party’s not going to change on this issue.”

The Bible on Fox? Joe Flint of the Los Angeles Times reports that billionaire News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch wanted The Bible miniseries to air on one of his networks instead of the History Channel, but he couldn’t quite pull it off. It apparently didn’t fit on his regular networks, so he considered airing it on Sunday nights on the Fox News Channel instead of Huckabee reruns. But Burnett and Fox News couldn’t come to terms and the rest, as they say, is history, or—in this case—the History Channel.

Doubling down on dating. The GSN television network produces the hit show The American Bible Challenge, and the show’s audience more than doubles anything else on the network, and its viewers skew conservative and Christian. GSN must figure it’s stumbled on to something, so it’s doubling down with a new program, It Takes a Church. Yahoo! Entertainment News reports that in this new program, “church members compete to find a love interest for a single member of the congregation.” GSN programming chief Amy Introcase-Davis said Tuesday that no airdate has been set for the new show.

Dan the man. I am in Washington, D.C., this week, in part to attend the annual gala for the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, which took place last night in the Ronald Reagan Building, a couple of blocks from the White House. More than 500 people attended, including what seemed like enough congressmen to constitute a quorum. Reps. Doug Lanborn, Paul Ryan, Trent Franks, Eric Cantor, Richard Hudson, Steve King, and Dan Lipinski were the ones I personally met. Ryan was the keynote speaker, and his speech was interrupted with applause when he said he wanted to make abortion not just illegal, but unthinkable. But, surprisingly, the most heartfelt ovation—a standing ovation, in fact—came when Lipinski was recognized. He was the lone Democrat representative at the event, a man who has stood firm against his party on issues of life and marriage.