Same-sex marriage comes to Rick Santorum's home state—Pennsylvania—and the former senator and presidential candidate who waged a long, losing war against gay marriage... has nothing to say.

Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, who rose to prominence for his stalwart opposition to gay and lesbian unions and attracted national attention in 2012 for running a presidential campaign comparing same-sex marriage to inanimate objects, remained silent. The senator appeared on Fox News just minutes after the decision on Tuesday but didn’t address the matter. He tweeted voters to support his chosen primary candidate in Oregon, but couldn’t spare 140 characters to condemn the liberal social agenda coming to his home state. ThinkProgress made repeated requests for comment to Santorum’s organization—Patriot Voices—and his personal spokesperson over a period of two days, but did not receive a response.

Any comment would prove undoubtedly awkward, since Judge Jones was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2002, at the urging of Santorum, who described him as “highly qualified to assume the important role of Judge and the duty of protecting the Constitution and ensuring the effective operation of our judicial system.” Still, politicians rarely allow consistency to get in the way of political expediency and Santorum had plenty of opportunities to express disappointment with his nominee.

Republicans are slowly realizing that preventing same-sex marriage from marrying is a losing issue for them—Pennsylvania's conservative Republican governor declined to appeal the ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in his state—and abandoning his crusade against same-sex marriage will allow Santorum to focus on issues with broader appeal to voters... like crusading against birth control.