Rick Santorum’s ‘Google problem’ gains attention after Iowa

Some voters who took to the Web to find out more about Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum the morning after the Iowa primary didn’t end up any the wiser.

That’s because the first result Google brings up in a search on Santorum’s last name is a link to spreadingsantorum.com, which takes readers to a page with the following definition:

"Santorum 1. The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex. 2. Senator Rick Santorum."

It’s a prank page created by the editor and commentator Dan Savage in 2003 after Santorum compared “homosexual acts” to “man on dog” sex, the New York Times reported.

According to MSNBC:

(Savage) held a contest to decide precisely how to define "santorum," then created a Web page that did so called SpreadingSantorum.com, and finally he helped create a network of other Web pages that pointed to the page. Soon enough, SpreadingSantorum became the top search result for Google (and Bing, and Yahoo) searches of "santorum."

Santorum’s official campaign page tops the search results for “Rick Santorum” or “Sen. Santorum,” but Savage’s page still appears in the list of links, the Times noted.

With Santorum’s profile rising, one anti-gay activist urged Savage to take down his site today, the Huffington Post reported. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, accused Savage, who launched the anti-bullying video campaign called “It Gets Better,” of cyberbullying Santorum.

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LaBarbera also asked the media to take the prank seriously. “Stop joking about it, and do not act as if Rick Santorum’s ‘Google problem’ just appeared out of nowhere,” he said in a statement today. “This is calculated character assassination engineered by a ‘gay’ activist who, ironically, crusades against hate."

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