The big question (incredibly) seems to be this: was Santorum actually comparing homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest, and adultery? Of course he was. There. I'm glad I was able to clear that up. See what my linguistics background did for me? Of course, there's a more subtle issue here. Santorum followed the above comments with this statement: "All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family... And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist, in my opinion, in the United States Constitution." That part of the statement isn't getting as much press as the comparison of homosexuality to incest. It does, I think, provide a touch of context that diminishes the offensiveness of the comparison at least a little bit. As I read it, Santorum was (at least in part) making a point about constitutional law, not about policy: he was saying that what homosexuality, incest, adultery, bigamy, and polygamy all have in common is that claims to practice them free of state control are all rooted in what he sees as the same flawed constitutional theory--namely, that the due process clause protects a fundamental right of privacy that includes those practices. This comparison of homosexuality to bigamy has been made and debated in opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court--including Bowers v. Hardwick and Romer v. Evans. So, if we take Santorum's comment as just a statement of an intellectual position on a question of constitutional law, I think it comes off a touch less badly than the way it's being reported and criticized. Of course, I don't believe for a second that Santorum meant it just as a statement of an intellectual position on a question of constitutional law. Remember, the link that Santorum sees between homosexuality and polygamy is that they're both "antithetical" to the "healthy" family--so there's obviously something other than careful constitutional analysis going on here.