Rick Santorum was asked last night about the 1,800 same-sex couples who are married in New Hampshire, and what would happen to them if he succeeds in adding an anti-gay amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He replied:

“If we have a — if the Constitution says marriage is between a man and a woman, then marriage is between a man and a woman. And — and, therefore, that’s what marriage is and — and would be in this country. And those who are not men and women who are married are — would not be married. That’s what the Constitution would say.”

So, in this case, a “pro-family” candidate wants to use the Constitution to break up families, on purpose. Americans who are legally married would be told, “Sorry, the government has decided you’re not married anymore.”

Later, in the same debate, Santorum was contrasting his vision with that of Mitt Romney.

“[T]he governor used a term earlier that — that I shrink from. And — and it’s one that I don’t think we should be using as Republicans: ‘middle class.’ There are no classes in America. We are a country that don’t allow for titles. We don’t put people in classes. There may be middle income people, but the idea that somehow or another we’re going to buy into the class warfare arguments of Barack Obama is something that should not be part of the Republican lexicon.”

So, in Santorum’s mind, married couples shouldn’t necessarily be “married couples,” and the middle class shouldn’t necessarily be called the “middle class.”

Wow.

And to think his former constituents didn’t want this guy representing them in the Senate.

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Follow Steve on Twitter @stevebenen. Steve Benen is a producer at MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show. He was the principal contributor to the Washington Monthly's Political Animal blog from August 2008 until January 2012.