Oh what a difference 7 years can make...

In 2004 George W. Bush made protecting the sanctity of marriage a central platform of his re-election campaign. He endorsed the Federal Marriage Amendment, "a proposed constitutional amendment that would define marriage for all of the states as strictly heterosexual". And he ran on this blatant homophobia knowing full-well that it would appeal to the right-wing evangelical crowd and motivate them to show up and vote. He was right, they did.

Now flash forward to the present and take a gander at the 2012 crop of GOP goofballs presidential hopefuls. It doesn't take much time listening to their spiels before one gets the sense that pretty much every one of them (with maybe the exception of Jon Huntsman) are hoping to use the same playbook Bush used and achieve the same results he did.

But ... this ain't 2004 and the ones getting mocked, demeaned, and laughed at are no longer the members of the glbt community, but the GOP homophobes who think this is still a winning strategy. It's not. And this is not just my humble opinion either, I've got company:

Could this be the biggest gay-bashing election in recent history? Doubtful, since President George W. Bush set such a high bar in 2004. Quite the contrary: Call me an optimist, but I see such highly publicized gay-baiting as a positive development.

Why? Not so long ago, the virulently homophobic views offered by some candidates were treated almost as viable alternatives to the positions taken by less anti-gay politicians. It was as if all those views came from the same menu of Reasonable Points of View Worth Debating. Now, the radical ideas espoused by Bachmann, Perry, Santorum and others are held up not for genuine consideration but for scorn (notwithstanding the last GOP debate in Iowa). Perry's and Bachmann's views aren't weighed against President Obama's "evolving" stance on same-sex marriage; rather, they are simply ridiculed. It says as much about our society as it does the candidates.

It gets better indeed.

And then there's this very entertaining video clip highlighting what fools these people are making of themselves. I just can't help believing people with this magnitude of homophobia and hate are a bit off mentally, but again, this is just my humble opinion. Watch and laugh, mock, and demean. It's our turn now: