Santorum 'Google bombing' shows dark side of LGBT movement

Washington D.C., Oct 9, 2011 / 17:34 pm

Media attacks on Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum show “just how twisted and vile the LGBT movement can be when anyone dare disagree,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of Business and Culture for the Media Research Center.

Members of the media “bash Santorum whenever possible,” Gainor said to CNA on Oct. 6.

Gainor responded to ongoing Google attacks against Santorum by gay sex-advice columnist Dan Savage.

Santorum is Catholic and has vocally expressed his support for the Church’s teaching on marriage. In recent years, Savage has lashed out at Santorum for his belief that marriage is a union between a man and a woman.

In 2003, Savage organized a “Google bomb” against Santorum, setting up a website displaying a graphic sexual term as the definition for the word “santorum.” Through extensive use of links to other sites, he then caused this site to rise to the top of Google search engine results.

When Internet users perform a Google search for Rick Santorum, the obscene website is the first result.

The Google attacks have gained national attention since Santorum joined the race for Republican presidential nomination.

Santorum contacted Google's office, but they refused to remove the vulgar results, saying that the company only removes content from search results “in very limited cases.” A Google representative advised Santorum to directly contact the webmaster of the page that he found offensive.

Gainor described the attacks are “part of an ongoing hate campaign organized by Savage against Santorum.”

“It is despicable that Savage would help equate Santorum's name in such a bizarre sexual way,” he said.

“And even worse that media outlets continue to work with Savage after his repeated attacks on Santorum.”

Gainor charged that the bias against Santorum is widespread in the media because of Santorum’s Catholic values.

He noted that “CNN's openly gay Don Lemon talked about Santorum being ‘homophobic,’ while others called him an ‘idiot’ or ‘mentally ill.’”

“The media can't stand Santorum because of his socially conservative views,” Gainor said.

Candidates with such values, he explained, “are always the targets for such media attacks.”