Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum told the National Right to Life Committee’s convention this morning that the Supreme Court’s decision striking down bans on gay marriage was part of the spread of the “cancer” that began with Roe v. Wade.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a very difficult time in America,” the GOP presidential candidate said. “We’ve seen some court decisions that I know have people very upset about what the future of the family and marriage and our culture is looking like.”

Roe v. Wade, he said, is “the cancer that is infecting the body of America” and “you saw Roe and its subsequent decisions bare its ugly head in the case of the gay marriage decision just a few days ago.”

The court’s majority in the marriage equality case, he said, declared that “it is what we say it is and we can do whatever we want to do to whomever we want to do it to.”

“And it was the Roe decision, the Casey decision and subsequent decisions on abortion that have led us to this decision on marriage,” he said. “It’s a fundamental rewriting of the Constitution, ignoring truth, ignoring Nature and Nature’s Law.”

He told the audience that he would keep on fighting marriage equality just as he kept on fighting abortion rights after Roe: “When did it become the law of the land that the Supreme Court has the final say on anything? They do not have the final say on anything! The American people have the final say on everything!”

