Newsweek has a new story about Karen Santorum, Rick Santorum’s wife, that seems designed to undermine her reputation among social conservatives. But assuming that the story is accurate, the writer has forgotten that there is nothing surprising about people doing bad things (which Roman Catholics and other Christians refer to as “sins”), and that Christian voters forgive people who repent and change.

The claim: back in the 1980s, Karen Santorum — then Garver — was not a good Roman Catholic, but instead an “average progressive” who carried on an amorous, live-in relationship with a local “abortion provider,” writes Nancy Hass at Newsweek.