Rick Santorum did a reading and Q&A at a bookstore in Pennsylvania recently. His people had some kids tossed out of the bookstore after one of the girls held up a copy of my book, “The Kid,” and said she might ask Santorum to sign it. This is from Matthew Rothschild’s story in The Progressive:

She held up a copy of a book by the gay writer Dan Savage called “The Kid,” which is about how he and his partner adopted a son. And Rocek said, “It would be funny if we got Santorum to sign this book.” (To discredit Santorum, Savage and his readers in 2003 came up with a nasty definition of “Santorum” that now often appears on Internet searches for Santorum’s name.)…

“A woman nearby snapped: `He’s only here to sign his own book. He won’t sign that,’ ” recalls Galperin.

Shaffer says the woman also added, “You’re shameful and disgusting.”

For a minute, the young women thought that would be the end of it.

But no such luck.

A state trooper in full uniform, including hat and gun, was in the store, and, according to Shaffer and Galperin, he met with the person who didn’t care for the Dan Savage joke, along with a few others, including members of the store and Santorum’s people.

Galperin says she heard the trooper ask, “Do you want me to get rid of them?”

And then the trooper, Delaware State Police Sgt. Mark DiJiacomo, who was on detail as a private security guard, came over to the group of women.

Here is the conversation, as Galperin remembers it: “You guys have to leave.”

The girl, Hannah Shaffer, ultimately got arrestedkinda, sorta. Now the ACLU is thinking about kinda, sorta suing.

I’m going on a book tour in September to promote my new book, The Commitment , which comes out September 22. For the record, I will happily sign copies of Rick Santorum’s book while I’m on my tour this fall.