Campaign for the neologism "santorum"

In 2003, American columnist Dan Savage initiated a campaign to associate the surname of then-Senator Rick Santorum with a sexual act. Savage described the campaign as a response to certain comments by Santorum, widely regarded as homophobic, and culminated in the creation of a vulgar word association.

During an interview in April 2003 with the Associated Press about moral relativism and the Catholic Church sex abuse cases, Santorum had argued that consenting adults do not have a constitutional right to privacy, and that certain acts—specifically polygamy, adultery, and sodomy—undermine society and the family, and as such should fall under the police power of the state. Savage, a gay rights activist, subsequently asked his readers to coin a definition for "santorum," announcing the winner as "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex."

In 2004 Savage created a website called "Spreading Santorum" to promote the definition, which became a prominent search result for Santorum's name on several search engines. Savage offered in 2010 to take the website down if Santorum donated US$5 million to a gay rights group, Freedom to Marry.

Commenting on the word association Savage had created, Santorum said in June 2011 that the situation comes with the territory of being a politician, and "unfortunately there are vile people out there who do horrible things. ... It's unfortunate that some people thought it would be a big joke to make fun of my name ..." When asked whether Google should step in to prevent the definition appearing so prominently under searches for his name, he said they should intervene only if they would normally do so in this kind of circumstance.

Santorum interview

Main article: Santorum controversy regarding homosexuality

Rick Santorum

In an interview with the Associated Press on April 7, 2003, Santorum discussed the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in relation to liberalism and relativism. He argued that moral relativism involves the acceptance of any adult consensual behavior in the privacy of people's homes, even if the behavior might otherwise be regarded as deviant, an attitude that he believes leads to an unhealthy culture.

He said that, while he had no problem with homosexuality, he did have a problem with homosexual acts: "As I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships. And that includes a variety of different acts, not just homosexual." He continued: "We have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that has sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose. Because, again, I would argue, they undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family. And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does."

He said he was arguing against any relationship other than marriage between a man and a woman, the basis in his view of a stable society: "That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be." The interview triggered an angry reaction, including from gay rights activists. A spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee described the views as divisive and reckless.

Savage campaign

Dan Savage

American sex-advice columnist Dan Savage responded to Santorum's comments in an op-ed in The New York Times on April 25, arguing that they amounted to an overt Republican appeal to homophobic voters. A reader of his column, "Savage Love," suggested he organize a contest to determine a definition for "santorum." Savage had previously sought to coin several sexual neologisms, including "pegging." He wrote: "There's no better way to memorialize the Santorum scandal than by attaching his name to a sex act that would make his big, white teeth fall out of his big, empty head."

He said on May 29 that he had received 3,000 suggestions, and posted several for readers to choose from, announcing the winner on June 12 as "that frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." He set up a website to spread the definition, featuring the term over a brown splattered stain on an otherwise-white page. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in July 2006 that the site appeared at the top of a Google search for Santorum's name. When asked whether he was concerned about the effect on Santorum's children, Savage responded that gays and lesbians have children too, yet their children are required to listen to gay relationships being compared to incest and bestiality. He said the people worried about Santorum's children were "left-leaning trolls": "The only people who come at me wringing their hands about Santorum's children are idiot lefties who don't get how serious the right is about destroying us."

Savage offered in May 2010 to remove the site if Santorum donated $5 million to "Freedom to Marry," an advocacy group for same-sex marriage. In February 2011, the term was still the top result for Santorum's name on several search engines, including Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Reception

The New York Times reported in 2004 that people had tried to use Google bombs to link the names of several American politicians to what it called unprintable phrases, including George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Rick Santorum. Savage's campaign was widely discussed in the media, but the word itself did not gain wide acceptance, according to The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English in 2006.

The American Dialect Society selected "santorum" as the winner in its "Most Outrageous" category in the society's 2004 "Word of the Year" event, as a result of which several newspapers reportedly omitted that category from their coverage of the announcement. Bloggers linking to it caused it to rise in Google's rankings. Google Current reported in 2006 that the word had inspired punk rock and blues songs, and it began appearing on bumper stickers and t-shirts. Charles Moser of the Sexual Medicine Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality included it in a 2006 article for Sexuality, Reproduction and Menopause. Jon Stewart mentioned it on The Daily Show a few times; his reference to it in May 2011 caused the word to be one of the most queried search terms on Google the following day. Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report also referred to it a couple of times.

The campaign became the subject of a paper about the impact of new media, "Natality in the Private, Public, and Political Spheres: When Santorum Becomes santorum," presented to the National Communication Association in 2008. Michael Fertik of ReputationDefender, a company that helps people influence their Web presence, described the problem as "devastating" and said it was "one of the more creative and salient Google issues" he had ever seen. Mark Skidmore of Blue State Digital said Santorum will find it difficult to shift Savage's site, because Savage has over 13,000 inbound links against 5,000 for Santorum's own site.

Stephanie Mencimer wrote in Mother Jones in 2010 that several commentators said the campaign had contributed to Santorum's defeat in 2006 against Bob Casey. Savage tried to contribute $2,100 to Casey's campaign, but Casey's spokesman said in July 2006 that the check had been returned because of Savage's santorum website and remarks in his column. When he heard Santorum might run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, Savage said he would "have to sic [his] flying monkeys on him"—encourage bloggers to start linking to his website again.

Santorum discussed the issue in a February 2011 interview with Roll Call: "It's one guy. You know who it is. The Internet allows for this type of vulgarity to circulate. It's unfortunate that we have someone who obviously has some issues. But he has an opportunity to speak." After announcing he might stand for the 2012 presidential nomination, he told The Daily Caller in April 2011 that he had not hired anyone to help move Savage's website lower in search results, but hoped his possible run for president would shift his own site to the top organically.