At the end of every year, Andrew Sullivan allows his blog readers to pick the most “shrill, hyperbolic, divisive and intemperate right-wing rhetoric” of the year. He calls it the Malkin Award. Here are my three favourites from this year’s shortlist:

1. Peter Mullen:

“Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS.”

2. Michael Savage:

“The children’s minds are being raped by the homosexual mafia, that's my position. They’re raping our children's minds.”

3. Orson Scott Card:

“Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn. Biological imperatives trump laws. American government cannot fight against marriage and hope to endure. If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die.”