Rick Santorum Loosening Up on Gay Sex?

Talking Points Memo notes that statements by Rick Santorum to the Des Moines Register in a guest column which appeared over the weekend, indicate the potential presidential candidate has shifted in his views on gay sex

Writes TPM: But at one point in the column, Santorum sought to make a distinction between gay people's private lives, versus the public sanction and recognition that comes with gay marriage:

Let me first define what we are not talking about. I believe if two adults of the same sex want to have a relationship that is their business. But when they ask society to give that relationship special recognition and privileges, then we should be able to have a rational debate about whether that is good public policy.

But hold on a second. Back when he was a senator, Santorum used to say that people's private sexual lives weren't just their own business.

In a famous interview with the Associated Press in April 2003, Santorum discussed the then-pending Supreme Court case of Lawrence v. Texas, in which the court was widely expected to (and ultimately did) overturn existing state laws against sodomy:

We have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that has sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose. Because, again, I would argue, they undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family