Kathryn Jean Lopez thinks Michele Bachmann is skirting the issue of gay marriage and icky, icky gay secks—Christine O'Donnell too!—not because these GOP stuperstars don't have the courage of their own bigoted convictions, but because I'm a bad, bad man:

Rick Santorum has been having that conversation as much as one can in a political context. He has been long before New York State or any other state legalized same-sex marriage. As a result, he has been eviscerated for it, his very name made to be a perversion as thanks for his courage in confronting the issue.

Says Thers at Eschaton:

It's funny watching the Right get all sniffy over Dan Savage's "Santorum" coinage, mostly because they are claiming that when they say to gays "what you do is totally gross and destroying civilization and also you are going to HELL," that is just Civil Discourse because Jesus.

That about nails it. Rick, Michele, Tony, and Kathryn can say whatever they like about us—we're poo-eating perverts! we're coming for/on/in your kids! we tanked the economy with our icky gay marriages!—but we're not allowed to challenge or mock them because that wouldn't be civil.

They can dish it out, they can't take it.