Last week we noted that Rick Santorum had filled in for Tony Perkins as co-host of “Today’s Issues” with the American Family Association’s Tim Wildmon. During the program, Santoum attempted to explain how Shariah law is incompatible with western civilization:

Jesus said “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s” and that huge piece of wisdom has really set the course for western civilization where you have civil laws and have civil penalties – we exact justice in a civil fashion – and then we have higher laws, we have God’s law. Now our civil laws are supposed to comport with God’s laws but sometimes they don’t, and so it is always the obligation of those, for example, the issue of abortion – the civil law does not comport with God’s law, in my opinion and I think the opinion of many people in this country and it is our obligation to continue to try and change that law. We have to live under the civil law, we have to obey that law because it is the civil law but we need to continue to try to change it to make sure that these laws, the laws our country, comport. In the Islamic world, that is not the case. Mohammad did not say “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s” because the civil law in Islam and the sacred law are one in the same. Shariah is both a civil code and a religious code.

So let me get this straight: Muslims want civil laws to comport to the dictates of their holy book, the Quran, so that the civil law and the religious law are one in the same. And that is incompatible with western civilization … because Religious Right activists are too busy operating under the principle that “our civil laws are supposed to comport with God’s laws” as laid out in the Bible?

What exactly is the difference between Santoum’s assertion that is the obligation of Religious Right activists to make sure our laws comport with God’s law and Shariah, which says the nation’s civil laws and religious laws are to be one in the same?