Posted Jan 14, 2012 5:23pm EST

Rick Santorum has long drawn the special loathing of supporters of marriage equality for his fierce opposition to the measure, but until recently, he hadn't had much luck benefitting from the flip side of that: The united support of marriage foes.

Since his Iowa victory, however, he's begun finally to unite the wing of the Republican Party for whom marriage is a central issue. Former presidential candidate Gary Bauer endorsed Santorum last week, a group of leading social conservatives backed him today, and he just announced the endorsement of one of the highest-profile figures in the marriage wars, Maggie Gallagher, who until recently chaired the National Association for Marriage, the best funded group on its side.

Gallagher's endorsement:

What moved me most are the words Rick Santorum used to "connect the dots"-to explain why support for marriage, for life, and for an economy that provide the dignity of jobs to average Americans are not three separate things. They are bound together by principles-by American principles...

... The left, which thought it had buried Santorum years ago, is going after him with a hatred unmatched. They hate him with that special ire reserved for a man's virtues, not his vices.

They will go after him not just to defeat Rick Santorum, but to smear his good name, to associate it with their own muck, to take a decent and honorable man and try literally to make his name mean mud.

They will not succeed.

The American people, I promise you, are not going to reject a man they would otherwise support because he believes in traditional Christian views of sex and marriage. Especially when he believes-not just with his words, and not just with his vote, but with every action of his soul and his life-that a man's job is to support his children, born and unborn, to commit a loving and faithful marriage to one woman, and to devote himself to being a good dad.

That's Rick Santorum...