Republican Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has risen to third place in Iowa polls. Now with 16% of the projected votes, which is a far cry of where he was previously, Santorum’s surge in Iowa has me deeply concerned.

First of all, I think he’s an idiot as I’ve claimed here, here, and here, but I’m concerned for more than just his lack of an intelligent quotient. Santorum has recently courted several “evangelical leaders within [Iowa]” and is using the standard hot topics of same sex marriage, abortion, and the threat of Islam  to garner favor with the 99 counties in Iowa.

Santorum isn’t dealing with important issues such as the economic crisis, health care, education, and rising unemployment. Instead, he has stoked the flames of fear many social conservatives have–that the gays will destroy traditional marriage, babies will be haphazardly aborted, and that Islam will take over our borders.

While I would normally scoff at platforms such as this, Santorum appears to be stirring up the pot enough in Iowa to rise in the polls. His tactic of fear and ignorance is working!

Santorum still has a lot of ground to cover to take over Romney and Paul, who are currently tied for first, but he’s gaining some steam.

If he does win the nomination, he not only plans to repeal DADT but to annul gay marriages that are currently legal in some states. ThinkProgress reported on this as well as on an interview between MSNBC’s Chuck Todd and Santorum on the subject of gay marriage. During the interview Santorum had this to say, “I think marriage has to be one thing for everybody. We can’t have 50 different marriage laws in this country, you have to have one marriage law.” When asked if he would make same-sex couples, who were currently married according to their state’s laws, get divorced, he responded by saying, “their marriage would be invalid.”

I wonder what happened to the GOP’s desire to limit the role of the federal government in a person’s private life and for acknowledging the rights of the states? I guess Santorum doesn’t buy into those Republican tenets, does he?