Dan Savage Schools The New York Times

It’s funny how confused the entire world is right now about Santorum’s little Google problem. I am particularly enjoying all the people who think Santorum is some sort of unfortunate but long-standing homonym. (Heh, heh, Beavis, he said…) But when even the New York Times starts getting the story wrong, Dan Savage (who, for my money, deserves recognition as one of the greatest memetic engineers of the 21st century) gets to set the record straight:

My readers and I did not redefine Santorum because he disagrees with us strongly about gay marriage. We redefined his name after he compared gay relationships to dog fucking and child rape–”man on dog, man on child”–in an sprawling interview with a freaked-out AP reporter. In that interview Santorum insisted that Americans do not have a constitutional right to privacy. Santorum defended sodomy laws that criminalized private, consensual, adult sexual activity–between gay or straight couples. It wasn’t Santorum’s opposition to same-sex marriage, it was his support for bringing felony charges against gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and heterosexuals for private, consensual, adult sexual conduct that inspired the campaign.