Romney recently wrote in The Washington Examiner that Obama is trying to "impose a secular vision on Americans who believe that they should not have their religious freedom taken away."

NewsMax reported on their interview with Santorum:

President Barack Obama uses his faith "as a convenience" when it serves him, while at the same time being the most anti-religion president in history, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum charged in an exclusive Newsmax interview....

"Over the last few weeks, he has done more to assault religion in this country than any president, certainly in recent history, maybe even in history," said Santorum.

This kind of manic strawman Manicheanism has always driven the farther reaches of the religious and political right -- but never extended much beyond Pat Buchanan at the top of American politics.  But an indication that Santorum and Romney might be preparing for what we have seen in recent weeks, were the speeches they gave in Texas attacking John F. Kennedy's approach to separation of church and state. Indeed, the attack on separation, the claims that secularists are somehow driving people of faith, and even faith itself out of public life; are underpinnings of the full blown notion, (now expressed in incendiary fashion by Romney and Santorum) that there is a "war against religion" being waged by the Obama administration and president Obama personally.  

This narrative is one of the very definitional aspects of the Religious Right. That it is being used by both the leading candidate of the Religious Right and the candidate of the Republican establishment to frame campaign issues is an astonishing development.   (Gingrich is doing it too.)  

And we have never before seen anything like it.