The Religious Right hates Mitt Romney. We all know this. They do not want to vote for him under any circumstances. The trouble is that the “family values” wingnut crowd can’t seem to settle on which other primary candidate they hate the least — Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich? So some of them are digging their heels in for Santorum, others for Gingrich, and the infighting between the two camps is getting nasty:

Desperate to settle on one conservative alternative, Religious Right leaders backing Rick Santorum and those backing Newt Gingrich are now resorting to vicious attacks against what have long been seen as off-limits targets in presidential campaigns — the candidates’ wives.

Influential evangelical leader James Dobson set off the fireworks at this weekend’s Christian Right summit, giving a speech that lavished praise on Karen Santorum and asked whether Americans really wanted Callista Gingrich — “a woman who was a man’s mistress for eight years” — as their First Lady, according to sources who attended the meeting.

Translation: Daddy D called Callista Gingrich a whore.

One source described Dobson’s tone as “angry,” and said it seemed like Dobson was blaming Callista Gingrich for the couples’ affair, which began while the former House Speaker was still married to his second wife (this is Callista Gingrich’s first marriage).

“It was clear that, to him, the villian in this story is Callista Gingrich,” the source said.

Well, of course! In the fundamentalist Christian worldview, men are never responsible for their own behavior, which means Callista Gingrich must just be a vile temptress. Of course, that also means Newt’s second wife was also a vile temptress, as she lulled Newt into a sensual stupor, causing him to leave the bedside of his first wife, who was fighting cancer. Or maybe the problem is Newt?

The piece goes on to point out that the stories of Karen Santorum’s years-long love affair with An Abortion Doctor started circulating just after the big Religious Right confab in Texas where they were supposed to be deciding who to support, as a united front.

So basically, the religious conservative conversation has devolved to “slut slut slut slut slut!” and James Dobson started it. It’s nice to see them being a little more honest about their true beliefs.