Santorum Still Comparing Homosexuality to Polygamy

UPDATE: Rick Santorum isn’t shying away from the sort of inflammatory rhetoric that earned him the enmity of gay rights supporters in the first place.

Speaking to a group of college Republicans in New Hampshire on Thursday night, the ardent social conservative compared gay marriage to polygamy. ThinkProgress has video (also embedded below).

"Are we saying everyone should have the right to marry?” Santorum asked, according to an NBC News video. “Yeah!” many students shouted in response.

“OK. So anyone can marry anybody else?” Santorum continued. More agreement. Then came Santorum’s leap in logic: “So anybody can marry several people?"

Some in the crowd began to object to the analogy, but Santorum cut them off. As students continued to press him on the issue, with some booing his views, he seemed to grow frustrated. “What about three men?” he asked rhetorically at one point.

Santorum has long favored a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman. That stance was once a surefire way to motivate the Republican base, but with a majority of Americans now in support of gay marriage, some wonder whether it will hurt Santorum’s presidential chances. From the Los Angeles Times:

Santorum's conservative views played well among Iowa's Republican electorate, but New Hampshire's GOP base is more moderate. (Both states have legalized same-sex marriage.) But even in Iowa, he was asked about the issue and he'll likely face further questions as long as he remains in the race. The antipathy between Santorum and the gay community is well known, having been manifested, for one thing, in his "Google problem" (which we're not going to get into).

We do get into his Google problem (see here and below). It started in 2003, when the sex columnist Dan Savage objected to Santorum’s support of anti-sodomy laws and his comparison of homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest, and adultery. It now seems clear that Santorum isn’t backing down.

One Republican rival, at least, has publicly criticized his stand. Speaking with Bloomberg, Jon Huntsman called Santorum's anti-gay rhetoric divisive and called instead for treating gays with "fairness and dignity."

Scroll down or click here for video of Santorum's remarks.

UPDATE, Friday, Jan. 6, 11:25 a.m.: It appears the Romney ad's placement on the Santorum site isn't intentional.

The Romney campaign explains that its ad targets specific users, based on their browsing histories, rather than specific websites such as the Santorum site.

Google told The Slatest that it couldn’t speak to any particular ad, but that in general, “remarketing” ads focus on users who have visited a given site in the past (such as Romney’s campaign website). In theory, they can appear on any site in the Google Display Network. Google could not say whether the Romney ad was linked specifically to sites with the keyword “Santorum," but the Romney campaign suggested it wasn't.

POST Thursday, 5:12 p.m.: Rick Santorum’s least favorite website seems to be getting a boost from rival Mitt Romney's campaign—intentionally or otherwise.

The obscene prank site, launched eight years ago by sex columnist Dan Savage in retaliation for Santorum’s public assertion that he had “a problem with homosexual acts,” defines Santorum as… well, either you already know or you probably don’t want to. (But in case you do, click here.)

Euphemistically referred to as Santorum’s “Google problem,” the site’s popularity has persisted stubbornly over the years. As of Thursday it remained the top result for Google searches of “Santorum,” even as the candidate has rocketed to relevance in the GOP presidential campaign.

Slate wrote about the site and its implications for Santorum’s campaign back in July, and at this point even family newspapers are looking for ways to delicately address the issue.

Now ads for some of Santorum’s rivals are cropping up on the site.

Making the rounds on Thursday has been a screenshot posted on Buzzfeed that shows an official Mitt Romney campaign ad running as a banner across the top of the page. Worth noting, Buzzfeed says, is that “the ad is from Romney’s campaign (as opposed to a PAC).”

The Romney ad doesn't appear every time the site loads, leading some to question the screenshot's authenticity. But The Slatest has confirmed it: We found the same ad when we visited. Indeed, the ad says, "paid for by Romney for President, Inc." and links directly to Romney's official site.

Also worth noting, however, is that there’s a good chance the placement was unintentional (as Buzzfeed acknowledges at the bottom of its post). It appears to be a Google ad, meaning that the Romney campaign may have simply purchased ad space from Google linked to the keyword “Santorum” without considering the likelihood that Google would automatically place the ad on the vulgar site. On the other hand, it would be shocking if the Romney campaign weren’t aware of what pops up on Google when one enters that keyword.

So far the Romney campaign has not responded to The Slatest’s requests for comment.

Romney isn't the only political name that regularly appears in the ad slot on the Santorum site. Others include text ads mentioning candidates as diverse as Rick Perry and Elizabeth Warren, and banner ads by the conservative blog Newsmax that look a lot like a campaign ads for various Republican candidates. There's even an anti-Romney text ad.

The guess here is that none of the above specifically targeted the Santorum site for their ads, especially at a time when even the comedian Jon Stewart has pledged to give the dirty Santorum jokes a rest.

Typically, candidates respond to low blows from their opponents’ campaigns by blasting them publicly for the negativity. But Santorum is in a bit of a pickle here, as he can’t criticize his rivals for drawing attention to the site without drawing attention to it himself, and thereby reinforcing its popularity.

Meanwhile, Search Engine Land delves into the Google data and comes up with an interesting post arguing that the candidate has only himself to blame for the site’s continuing popularity.