The campaign for the neologism "santorum" started with a contest held in May 2003 by Dan Savage. Savage is a sex columnist and LGBT rights activist. He asked his readers to create a definition for the word "santorum" in response to then-U.S. Senator Rick Santorum's opinions about homosexuality, and comments about same sex marriage. In his comments, Santorum had stated that "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be." Savage announced the winning entry, which defined "santorum" as "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex". He created a web site, "spreadingsantorum.com" (and "santorum.com"), to promote the definition.