This is one of those situations where you just have to take a step back and say we — you know, you talk about the importance of prayer in this time and we’re now seeing assaults on our religious liberty we’ve never seen before. It’s a time for deeper reflection beyond this horrible situation.

— GOP primary hopeful Rick Santorum, calling the church shooting in Charleston — which left nine people dead — a “crime of hate” and connected the event to a broader “assault on our religious liberty,” the Washington Post reports.

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