Social issues become US election focus The Republican presidential race has been all about the economy. With sluggish economic growth and millions of Americans still out of work, the candidates for the nomination have been trying to portray themselves as the best person to fix it. But social issues - which have energised Republican politics for decades - returned dramatically to the fore during the past week, with controversies involving contraception and abortion, religious freedom and same-sex marriage filling the airwaves. "For a substantial portion of the Republican base, this is the central issue," says Bill Galston, a respected political analyst at the Brookings Institution. They are concerned about what they see as the cultural decay of America. The spotlight on social issues will probably benefit Rick Santorum, who won a clean sweep in the nomination contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri on Tuesday night. A social conservative with hardline views - he opposes abortion in all cases, including rape and incest - he has focused his campaign efforts on Christian conservatives. He has been unapologetic about putting social issues front and centre, even in a time of economic strife. But Mr Santorum, a Catholic with seven children, played down the role the contraception issue played in his victories. "I don't think it was a big issue at all," he told Fox News on Wednesday morning. Our numbers were doing much better before this controversy came up. Still, analysts say the issues played to Mr Santorum's strengths with his party's conservative base. Social issues have garnered new attention since the Obama administration ordered last week that employers - including Catholic hospitals and universities - must provide health insurance for contraception, including the morning-after pill. This comes after a decision, later reversed, by the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation to pull funding from Planned Parenthood, a service that provides contraception and abortions, after being put under pressure. It also coincides with a federal court ruling declaring California's voter-supported ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. "When you couple social issues with broader concerns like freedom of conscience, it's bigger than a pure social issue," said Mike Franc of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank. This is not just about contraception, it's about who gets to make core decisions. Social conservatives have played a decisive role in presidential politics in recent decades. George W. Bush courted them assiduously in his successful campaigns in 2000 and 2004, while John McCain appeared less comfortable addressing their concerns in 2008. The Tea Party's focus on the size of the US government and the budget put social issues in the background, but recent debate has rekindled passions. Catholic leaders have responded angrily to the Obama administration's directive on providing contraception, saying it would force them to subsidise and offer a practice that goes against their beliefs. The issue is even more high-stakes given that Catholics are the biggest swing religious bloc of the electorate and routinely vote for the eventual president. Seeing Mr Santorum gaining in the polls, Mitt Romney, the frontrunner for the nomination who has been accused of "flip-flopping" on social issues for the sake of political expediency, has also sought - unsuccessfully - to win over social conservatives this week. Mr Romney has joined the chorus of criticism against the administration, calling its new regulations an attack on "religious liberty," apparently in an attempt to appeal both to the religious right and centrist Catholic voters. The administration's new directive was a real blow "to our friends in the Catholic faith," Mr Romney, who is a Mormon, said in Loveland, Colorado, this week. "This kind of assault on religion will end if I'm president of the United States," Mr Romney said. But Democrats and his Republican rivals have attacked Mr Romney for upholding similar regulations while he was governor of Massachusetts. The traditionally liberal state in 2005 required hospitals to provide emergency contraceptives to rape victims, even though some Catholic hospitals said the morning-after pill was a form of abortion. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker vying to be seen as the conservative alternative to Mr Romney, and a convert to Catholicism, attacked Mr Romney over the issue. "There's been a lot of talk about the Obama administration's attack on the Catholic Church," Mr Gingrich said at a chilli restaurant in Cincinnati, Ohio, according to local reports. Well, the fact is, Governor Romney insisted that Catholic hospitals give out abortion pills, against their religious beliefs, when he was governor. Mr Romney has said he did not support the Massachusetts law, which passed even though he vetoed it. But complicating the situation, he said at the time: "My personal view, in my heart of hearts, is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraception or emergency contraception information." Meanwhile, Democrats have charged that Mr Romney has invested in pharmaceutical companies that produce emergency contraception.