In all fairness, it was a hostile environment for Santorum, a left-leaning New England college, but that’s exactly why the confrontation is so important. Anti-gay GOP candidates are going to have a really hard time convincing young voters to support them when they don’t support equality. This video just reinforces it.

The trend is not in the anti-gay favor. It’s in ours. Take a recent Pew analysis on young people’s support for marriage equality: “People in their early thirties today have a relatively favorable view of gay marriage and their views are similar to those of younger generations.”

Marriage equality is an important issue for younger voters. Many of us see it as the defining civil rights issue of our times. Several polls conducted last year found, for the first time in the country’s history, more people favor allowing marriage rights than not. That result would have been a pipe dream in the year before the 2000 presidential election.

Rick Santorum and the other GOP contenders will be made to see that anti-gay, wingnut politicians will be confronted at every turn, during every Q&A and thoroughly bashed online. But Santorum already knows a little something about that.

Top photo: Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn) (via Facebook)