If you are not a Christian, you can’t really appreciate what is so appalling and galling about the man, in light of true christians, who don’t abrogate the work of Christ with attempts at self righteousness attained by their outside of the cup persona and behaviors..
What you are doing, and why so many sincere Christians have great problems with Santorum, is he, as well as you, overlook how the transformative power an encounter with the True Christ impacts a man’s entire soul and being; he becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus, old things pass away, all things are made new.
Newt has confessed his sins, said he did things he is ashamed of, has sought to make reconciliation with the members of his family, and others he has hurt. He has blamed no one else but himself. He has come to a new and apparently cleansing faith in Christ Jesus and, most importantly, there is no evidence of any of the same behavioral sins in his life since this long journey of his repentance, rebirth, and renewal began.
And, yet, people cannot let the man leave his past behind. After 20 years - think of it - 20 years - there are still a majority of people in the press, politics - Santorum, and a lot of his supporters - who consider Newt the same man he was 20 years ago, and dare he try to take one step away from his past, to step into the new, as his faith promises him he can, they are there loudly, hypocritically, self-righteously to pull him right back. They won’t let him step away from his sinful past, though no apparent evidence of that sinful past exists any longer, or any evidence that he is the same man he was 20 years ago. He is being judged as the man he was - while that man no longer exists. He is, I repeat, a new creature in Christ Jesus.
Finally, Christians, who truly fully embrace and receive the saving work of Christ, who are transformed deeply, understand that Newt could have done all those things back then, even worse, and still today be a new creature in Christ Jesus - but no one, not Santorum, nor his minions, will allow for that, or accept that might ever be true. So, the final finally: it says more about the people who can’t let Newt be this new creature many believing Christians trust he is, if only because they are likewise sinners, great sinners, saved and transformed by the same power that Newt claims has saved and transformed him.
It is religious bigotry, hard hearts, and people like Santorum, who behaviorally have hit many of the right notes in their outward lives, though it is hard to believe that is extensively true - I am sure we will find out - whose self-righteousness - whose pride in their outward manifestations of sinlessness, and acceptable conduct, that causes believing Christians to distance themselves from him, to see him as a hypocrite, saved more by his self-perceived good works than the miraculous, healing work of a Perfect Savior, by his love and tender mercy, towards those who are fully unworthy.
Santorum is about none of that, he is about a gospel of works and self denial, of earned salvation. Newt is simply a sinner being saved by by the gift of grace, he could never earn or be worthy of... through no goodness of his own... the same as most of those Christians who can’t support Santorum’s apostasy."