I wasn't sure that Rand Paul could get any stupider

By Michael J.W. Stickings

CNN:

Sen. Rand Paul on Friday brushed off Barack Obama's recent reversal on same-sex marriage by saying he didn't think the president's views "could get any gayer."

The remarks from the Republican senator from Kentucky scored laughs among those attending an event held by Iowa's Faith and Freedom Coalition.

Of course they did. Anti-gay bigotry is hilarious to these right-wing assholes.

And while Rand likes to talk up what a devout libertarian he is, what he really is is a right-wing libertarian, and what we know about many right-wing libertarians is that they're only libertarian within certain biased, and specifically bigoted, parameters, like libertarianism for rich white people but government intervention for everyone else, and that they tend to mix their self-interestedly selective libertarianism with elements of social conservatism (e.g., they tend to be anti-abortion and generally dismissive of women and minorities and anyone else deemed to be "different"), often of the vicious variety, like, for example, Rand's father's, that would be Ron Paul's, expressions of racism and flirtations, to put it nicely, with white supremacists.

Rand obviously meant "gayer" in a bad way, a very bad way, and that's because it's still okay, more than okay, in conservative circles to hate gays and target them with all the venom you can muster.

Can you imagine him saying he didn't think Obama's views could get any... blacker?

Well... yes. But that wouldn't be quite as acceptable, would it, even on the right.

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I admit, the title of this post isn't quite accurate. It's not so much stupidity that's driving Rand as it is bigotry.

And, I further admit, I actually was pretty sure he could get stupider, or rather that his bigotry could prove to be even worse that we already knew it was.