Insantorum - Andrew Sullivan is all over the Santorum remarks, as one might expect from an openly gay Republican die-hard/blow-hard. Check here, and read down for much more. Nice to see some humility from this guy:

I have been incredibly naive. I expected a basic level of respect for gay people from civilized conservatives. I've always taken the view that there are legitimate arguments about such issues as marriage rights or military service... But something this basic as the freedom to be left alone in own's own home is something I naively assumed conservatives would obviously endorse - even for dispensable minorities like homosexuals. I was wrong. The conclusions to be drawn are obvious.

Actually, the conclusions to be drawn are not obvious to me (I mailed to ask what they are; nothing posted as yet). Is Sully gonna quit the party over this? Doubt it. And just to be clear I fully support the idea that people can have whatever sort of consensual sex they want to, on their own property.

I am a bit surprised to see a self-identified "conservative" being shocked shocked about this, though. What does he think "conservative" means? Conservative means, very simply, someone who wants to conserve - someone against messing with the status quo. To know what a conservative is for, you must know the context. Well, for Rick Santorum, the context is 21st century Pennsylvania. Lots of traditional families there, and still lots of anti-gay bigotry. That's what you'd expect a true conservative to be conserving. Conservatives, it is true, do understand property rights as human rights - generally speaking. But that's not ideological; it's simply the status quo; and exceptions have been and still are made. And they are fine with that, as long as the exceptions are the same old ones (anti-sodomy) and not some new ones (i.e. forcing racial preferences on private businesses).

The idea that there might be ideological underpinning to a political situation is not conservative. It hearkens back to whatever political impulse got the situation into the status quo. This is, ideologically speaking, an inconsistent patchwork. So, part of what conservatives are conserving is ancient social mores including traditional family law. Some of it is enlightenment liberal notions such as free speech and gun rights. Some of it is modern liberal (socialist) notions like social security.