The verb “strip” is the one most associated with Prejean’s name these days. She stripped her clothes and was certainly stripped of her moral authority as a spokesperson for marriage. In her brief stint as America’s scold, she forgot to memorize one Bible passage: “Judge not lest thou be judged.”

What’s amazing is that the circus-like antics of Prejean are the rule, not the exception for today’s anti-gay activists. There has clearly been a brain drain among our opponents – with the conservative intelligentsia largely running from GLBT issues. Filling the vacuum, are the vacuous – with little to offer, other than comedic relief.

For example, Joe the Plumber plunged into culture wars with his usual thoughtful advice: “I personally still think it’s wrong…you know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do–what man and woman are for…I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children.”

Joe the Plumber looked like Einstein compared to Maine Rep. Bernard Ayotte (R).  During a state House debate on marriage equality (passed 89-58), Ayotte said that he couldn’t support the legislation because it would provide legal protections to people whom he said suffered from hormonal imbalances.

“By all indications, homosexuality in human beings seems to be generated by imbalances in the human body,” Ayotte said. “As legislators, it is important that we do not base our statutes on genetic aberrations.” Even by the low standards set by anti-gay activists, this level of ignorance was shocking, yet indicative of how far the quality of our opponents has fallen.

Joining the chorus of anti-gay clowns was former Washington, DC mayor Marion Barry, best remembered for smoking crack and allowing the city’s rats to grow as large as cats.
A longtime gay rights supporter, he was the lone city councilman to vote against a bill, passed 12-1, to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside the District.

“All hell is going to break lose,” Barry predicted. “We may have a civil war. The black community is just adamant against this.” Columnist Leonard Pitts summarized Barry’s political cowardice when he said the former mayor “punked out.”

Sharing the anti-gay spotlight was caustic talk show host Michael Savage and the Kansas preacher noted for picketing military funerals with “God Hates Fags” signs, Fred Phelps and his wife, Shirley. They were banned from visiting England and publicly scorned for their bigoted views. While I do not agree with their banishment (neither do civil liberties groups), it does force social conservatives into the PR nightmare of having to turn Savage and Phelps into “creep celebres.”
Even the “mainstream” anti-gay activists seem to have come unhinged. In stating his opposition to federal hate crime legislation, James Dobson appeared in a video where he falsely claimed that the inclusion of “sexual orientation” opened the door to, “bisexuality, exhibitionism, fetishism, incest, necrophilia, pedophilia, prostitution, sexual masochism, voyeurism, bestiality.” Dobson added for effect, “I have to ask, ‘have we all gone completely mad?’”

Oddly enough, Dobson lives in Colorado, one of twelve states that have a hate crime law offering protection based on sexual orientation and gender identity. There are also 31 states that offer such protection based solely on sexual orientation. In these 43 states, can Dobson point to a problem with hate crime laws being applied to necrophilia or bestiality? If not, his bizarre and paranoid ranting says more about his overactive imagination, than it does about the reality of such laws.

Of course, for the sake of sheer amusement, we can’t leave out the absurdity of Bristol Palin hawking abstinence. With baby in-tow and embittered ex-boyfriend on tail, she is the poster girl for the social conservative mantra: “do as I say, not as I do.”
  
Let me reiterate, so you can fully appreciate and savor the situation. The new faces of social conservatism are: Carrie Prejean, Joe the Plumber, Marion Barry, Bernard Ayotte, Michael Savage, Fred Phelps and Bristol Palin. With such luminaries, it should be no surprise that the GLBT community has had a string of incredible victories. Somewhere in the process of passing the torch to the next generation, anti-gay activists have stumbled and are in danger of burning down the homophobic house.

Nevertheless, Wurzelbacher said the decision about whether to allow same-sex couples to marry should be left to states.

“People don’t understand the dictionary – it’s called queer,” Wurzelbacher told Christianity Today in an interview published this week. “Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do – what man and woman are for.”

He added, “I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.”

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights organization based in Washington, dismissed Wurzelbacher’s comments.

“It would matter if Joe the Plumber mattered,” Solmonese said. “One thing among many things we learned in the 2008 campaign is that he doesn’t.”

Wurzelbacher, regarded as a folk hero to many conservatives after challenging then-Democratic nominee Barack Obama about his tax policies, said neither political party was sufficiently Christian.

“They use God as a punch line,” Wurzelbacher said of Republicans. “They use God to invoke sympathy or invoke righteousness, but they don’t stay the course.”

Wurzelbacher said he considered McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, one of the GOP’s emerging stars. But he said the party would have a difficult time recasting its image to appeal to younger voters.

“You got the RNC talking about repackaging principles and values to make them hip and cool to the younger generation,” Wurzelbacher said. “You can’t repackage them. They are what they are. You can’t make what they are.”

Since the election, Wurzelbacher has spoken at conservative rallies around the country and traveled to Israel as a rookie reporter to cover the Gaza conflict.

Wurzelbacher told the magazine he might consider running for office someday.

“Not right now,” Wurzelbacher said. “God hasn’t said, ‘Joe, I want you to run.’ I feel (it’s) more important to just encourage people to get involved, one way or another. If I can inspire some leaders, that would be great.”

People who oppose homosexuality but support traditional Conservatism are in a bit of a bind: they love small government, living in the land of the free, a reduction in gun laws and taxes and publicly controlled services, but they also want to control the relationships of the people around them.

This contradictory stance has given rise to a new kind of bigot. The laissez-faire homophobe is someone who doesn’t mind if gay people exist and doesn’t necessarily hate the abstract idea of gay people. He or she just doesn’t want to know about their existence, to see them acting “gay” in their everyday lives and he or she definitely does not want them to interact with children.

Their objections to homosexuality are often couched in language about “opinions” or “beliefs” (notice the not-so-subtle reference to Miss California here).

Meet Joe the Plumber, who gave an interview with Christianity Today yesterday and had this to say:

In the last month, same-sex marriage has become legal in Iowa and Vermont. What do you think about same-sex marriage at a state level?
At a state level, it’s up to them. I don’t want it to be a federal thing. I personally still think it’s wrong. People don’t understand the dictionary—it’s called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do—what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.

If you can get through the offensive language, what we are left with is a “live free or die” but just don’t do it in my backyard approach to hatred.

We, as a community, need to combat the laissez-faire honmophobe with the same vigor as the gay-basher. The notion that turning bigotry into opinion will erase its harmful effects is patently untrue. Verbal discrimination effects others whether or not it is opinion, fact, belief or a thoughtless misstatement.

As well, the laissez-faire homophobe uses a sense of entitlement to a “gay-free” zone to argue for the effective exclusion of gay people from public life. It’s not that they don’t want gay teachers in theirschool, it’s that they don’t want gay characters on the T.V. programs they watch, they don’t want gay airline personnel for the one trip they take at Christmas, their “backyard” is and always will be the equivalent of the entire United States.

We must be careful of the laissez-faire homophobe because their tone is so reasonable. It is necessary to point out, over and over again, that couching bigotry in nice words does not make it any less harmful.

“If I’m elected president, I won’t raise taxes on small businesses, as Sen. (Barack) Obama proposes, and force them to cut jobs,” McCain said of his Democratic opponent during a rally at the convention center. “I will keep small business taxes where they are, help them keep their costs low and let them spend their earnings to create more jobs, not send to Washington.”

McCain flew to Toledo, near where “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher lives, from the state capital of Columbus amid the GOP’s push for this swing state and its 20 electoral votes.

The Holland, Ohio, plumber was in New York making the media rounds with his family, but McCain has been evoking his spirit after making him the focal point the final presidential debate between McCain and Obama. McCain also mentions Wurzelbacher at his rallies after the plumber was videotaped questioning Obama about whether his tax plan would keep him from buying the two-man plumbing shop where he works.

While some analyses showed Wurzelbacher faring better under Obama’s plan than McCain’s, McCain has lashed out at Obama for saying that while his policies may force some to pay higher taxes, they were designed to “spread the wealth around” by targeting only families making over $250,000 annually.

“Sen. Obama is more interested in controlling who gets your piece of the pie than he is growing the pie,” McCain told a crowd of several thousand.

During an earlier rally at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio, McCain drew cheers when he proclaimed that he was campaigning “on behalf of Joe the Plumber and Rose the Teacher and Phil the Bricklayer and Wendy the Waitress.”

Obama, in North Carolina, said he is the one worried about “the cops and firefighters who keep us safe, … the waitresses who work double shifts, the cashiers at Wal-Mart, the plumbers fighting for the American Dream.”

He added: “John McCain thinks that giving these Americans a break is socialism. Well I call it opportunity, and there is nothing more American than that.”

McCain complained during a nationally televised interview that the vast sums of money Obama is raising risk the post-Watergate financing reforms.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday” hours after Obama’s campaign reported raising a record $150 million in September, McCain said the overall sum his Democratic rival has raised – $605 million – showed the “dam has broken” for future White House races.

McCain also complained that the identities of people who contributed more than $200 million of Obama’s total take have not been reported, although that is allowable under federal law because the individual donations fall under the $200 reporting limit.

“I’m saying it’s laying a predicate for the future that can be very dangerous,” McCain said. “History shows us where unlimited amounts of money are in political campaigns, it leads to scandal.”

The Arizona senator has been limited to spending $84 million for the general election campaign after he accepted federal funds under a program created after the Watergate scandal. Obama initially indicated he would adhere to the same limit, but reversed course and became the first post-Watergate candidate to finance a general-election campaign with private funding.

McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, also sloughed off Obama’s endorsement by one of the country’s best known black Republicans and former military leaders, Colin Powell, who was President Bush’s first secretary of state.

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Powell expressed personal affection for McCain but chided his friend of 25 years for the type of campaign he has run against Obama, who is black.

McCain said: “I’ve always admired and respected Gen. Powell,” before noting his endorsement by four other former secretaries of state. Asked whether Powell’s endorsement undercut McCain’s stance that Obama, a freshman senator from Illinois, is not ready to lead, McCain said of Powell: “We have a respectful disagreement.”

On other topics, McCain:

-Distinguished between anti-Obama automated calls he is making in battleground states and similar calls made against him by George W. Bush during the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina. Those calls suggested McCain was mentally unstable and had fathered a black daughter out of wedlock. The senator had adopted an orphan from Bangladesh.

McCain is now employing someone who made those calls against him to highlight Obama’s association with a Vietnam War radical.

“These are legitimate and truthful, and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family,” McCain said.

-Defended his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate and cast her in a fresh ideological role.

“She is a direct counterpoint to the liberal feminist agenda for America,” he said.

McCain also held a conference call with Jewish leaders and was endorsed by The Columbus Dispatch.