Campaign for "santorum" neologism

The campaign for the neologism "santorum" started with a contest held in May 2003 by Dan Savage. Savage is a sex columnist and LGBT rights activist. He asked his readers to create a definition for the word "santorum" in response to then-U.S. Senator Rick Santorum's opinions about homosexuality, and comments about same sex marriage. In his comments, Santorum had stated that "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be." Savage announced the winning entry, which defined "santorum" as "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex". He created a web site, spreadingsantorum.com (and santorum.com), to promote the definition.

In 2010 Savage said he would take the site down if Santorum donated US$5 million plus interest to Freedom to Marry. That group supports legal recognition of same-sex marriages. In September 2011 Santorum asked Google to remove the definition from its search engine index. Google refused. They said that the company does not remove content from search results except in very limited circumstances.

References

Other websites
 spreadingsantorum.com 

Category:Controversies in the United States
Category:LGBT rights in the United States
Category:2003 in the United States