“Religious faith is a choice. If you don’t make that choice, you aren’t there.”
Auto - nomos - Self rule.
Christianity teaches that you must give yourself over to Christ. You must sacrifice your autonomy in order to become one with Him.
“God has given man the freedom to come to Him, to choose to live a good life, to embrace the Love of God, and ultimately, to seek to be one with Him—or not.”
Yes, but here’s the problem. Someone who has given their life up to Christ has denied their autonomy. Ergo, they are acting contrary to what is perceived, to be the highest good, their own self rule.
Anyone who believes that autonomy is the principle good, cannot be a Christian. This is what Santorum is arguing here - America has never upheld the principle that individual autonomy is the principle good.
“You can legislate all you want, but the choice is up to the individual.”
Again, there is no compulsion to respect religion in a culture which believes that autonomy is the primary goal. You can only respect religion - if and only if - there is understanding of a world beyond that of the self.
“One who will live a ‘Godly’ life will do so without laws to force them to, and one who will not, will not despite any laws, be they secular or sacred.”
This is not about forcing anyone to do anything, but this is about affirming the principle that there exists something beyond self.
That I’m even here arguing this principle, indicates to me just how far things have slid.
The Right, the freedom to give one's self over to Christ is not to be found in a government which has decided that freedom of religion=freedom from religion.
So, self autonomy is not the goal, but a necessary foundation, (conversions at gunpoint don't count, do they?)
The carefully crafted statements in the Bill of Rights were there to allow people to live their lives as free of government intervention as possible.
Morality, largely based upon religion, remains a matter of choice, regardless. We have (had?) a system of government, which when populated by moral individuals, safeguarded the rights of the individual, meddled little in their affairs as was absolutely necessary.
As you said, 'how far we have slid' can only be measured in the distortion of that system to the point where our Government would have domain over our thoughts, expressions, diet, and medicaments, not to mention armaments, to the degree we are so constrained as to not have choice. When we said the Lord's Prayer in school every moring, youwere free to not say it if you chose, and many Catholics left off the last part (even though we agreed in principle with His being the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory for ever and ever) because that just wasn't the way we had been taught to say the prayer.
Those who grew up to embrace immorality, Buddhism, Shinto, whatever, made their choices, as did those of us who chose to follow Jesus, who like the lesser Lairds, swore our fealty in all things to Our Saviour and King of Kings. (God first, then Country, then others, then self--which worked when most everyone felt the same way.)
Recall that the power of government, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed comes from the choice of those who follow it, and that each soverign individual must possess that power in order to grant it to any governmental entity, otherwise, it is the other way around, with government tossing them the table scraps of its soverignty over them.
For this reason, at least back when I had Civics class, the People were at the top of the food chain, and government was considered subservient to them.
The founders would agree, that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, ate reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The power belongs to the people, ultimately to each individual, who can, as they choose, delegate it, or surrender it, be it to God or otherwise.
When the Government dictates against our will that we cannot mention religion in publicly funded schools, they have effectively prohibited the free exercise thereof, and as such limited the available choices--especially considering the secular humanist onslaught in the curricula of today.
If one is holding up autonomy as an end in itself, I'd agree, but it is only a means to an end, the freedom to choose to live well.
Those who would not, in the words of the Bard, 'Would not serve God if the Devil bid them'.