In the New York Times article Rick's Religious Fanaticism author Maureen Dowd’s target audience is religiously non affiliated liberals that have concerns over the prospects of overly devout presidential candidates. Her concerns are specifically toward Santorum being obliged to integrate some of his beliefs into political policies if he were to gain political power.

Maureen Dowd has been a reporter/writer for 33 years and has covered three presidential campaigns. Ms. Dowd won a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary in 1999.  

Ms. Dowd articulates many concerns I have held toward the candidates in this upcoming election. Ms. Dowd states that Mr. Santorum’s religious beliefs are on the side of extreme and threaten women’s rights. She refers to Santorum as Mullah which is of course the term for a Muslim religious leader; one can see the use of the term for Dowd is to exemplify that Santorum’s belief might as well be the beliefs of mullah Omar’s as far as she is concerned. The dangers of extremist beliefs and oppression are not reserved for the Muslims. For the unbelievers or mildly religious the extreme axioms that threaten equality are scary no matter which religious sect they are coming from.

I think the article does an excellent job at exposing the way in which the candidates are taking a nice American past time of religious values and warping it into a scary political tool,  preying on the beliefs of some devoutly Christian voters with promises of taking America back. Back from what would be a good question, plus the statement seems to contradiction his other statements about not imposing his religious beliefs on anyone.

I love that Ms. Dowd hits the nail on the head as far as I am concerned over the distrust she has for a candidate that displays such extremist religious views. The American people seem to be letting the love we share for religious freedom cloud the reality and practical implications of these candidate's belief systems. Dowd very appropriately gives an example of how these beliefs can easily slip into government policies with the forcing of vaginal sonograms for abortion patients that has been pushed by some.