March 19, 2012

Santorum: ‘I’m Praying’ for Dan Savage Who ‘Has Serious Issues’

Rick Santorum and Dan Savage.Rick Santorum (left): <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/6236332889/sizes/m/in/photostream/">Gage Skidmore/Flickr; Dan Savage: <a href="http://nopsa.hiit.fi/pmg/viewer/images/photo_415372751_b8b08c1335_t.jpg">Google Images</a>

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RealClearReligion posted an interview with Rick Santorum on Monday in which the reporter asked the candidate about Dan Savage, the gay sex columnist who held a contest in 2003 to redefine the word “Santorum.” Savage started the contest after the Pennsylvania senator controversially said the “definition of marriage” never included “man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.” The winning redefinition in Savage’s contest for Santorum was, famously, “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.”

Savage’s redefinition took hold, so much so that his “Spreading Santorum” site quickly became one of the top three Google search results for Santorum’s name. It’s since dropped to the eighth result, but the GOP contender still has a major Google problem.

Asked what he’d say to Savage if the two met, Santorum replied:

I would tell him that I’m praying for him. He obviously has some serious issues. You look at someone like that who can say and do the things that he’s doing and you just pray for him and hopefully he can find peace.

I emailed Savage to see what he had to say about that. He wrote back:

Rick Santorum thinks that women who have been raped should be compelled—by force of law—to carry the babies of their rapists to term, he thinks birth control should be illegal, he wants to prosecute pornographers, etc., etc., basically the guy wants to be president so that he can micromanage the sex lives of all Americans…and I’m the one with issues? Because I made a dirty joke at his expense eight or nine years ago and it stuck? I’m the one with issues?

Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Rick can pray for me. I’ll gay for him. And we can call it even.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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