Former Senator Rick Santorum is returning from a break today, and heading back onto the campaign trail.

Why did he take a weekend off as the Florida primary looms nearer and nearer?  Because his daughter is in the hospital, recovering from pneumonia.  His youngest child suffers from a condition call Trisomy 18, which causes congenital heart failure.

Senator Santorum is very lucky.  His daughter is recovering well, and he was able to be with her at the hospital during her illness.

Part of me wants to express my sympathies to the Santorum family for what they have been going through, but I can’t do it in good conscience because all of the things that give the Santorum family comfort and hope for Bella’s recovery are things that Rick Santorum is campaigning to DENY to other families.

He wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which allows families to get the medical treatment to help a child like Bella survive to three years old, let alone combat an additional  illness.

He wants to deny the rights of homosexual couples to visit their children or each other in the hospital.

He wants to keep loving couples from having children in the first place.  He wants to dissolve their marriages.

The only thing he is not trying to institutionalize out of reach of other families is the ability to find comfort in faith.

It is very sad that the Santorum family is going through this difficult time.  But I wish they would open their hearts and feel some compassion for families that struggle with these problems every day, and maybe realize that the platform of hate and exclusion upon which Rick Santorum is running hurts families very much like his own.  Especially in a time like this.