Bizarroworld Dispatch: Gay marriage ban "best message we can give to the Middle East"

In case you were wondering just how insane the Republican party has gone in their quest to win the November elections at all costs, you need look no further than the stem cell debate. But look at the gay marriage debate anyway, which is still taking up time on the Congressional calendar.

Democrats and a couple of sympathetic Republicans wondered whether, with the House planning to spend just five more weeks in session for the rest of the year, their colleagues were fiddling while Beirut burns.

"We have a conflagration in the Middle East, we have raised the debt ceiling four times to $9 trillion, and this is how the Republican congressional leadership chooses to spend its time?" demanded an agitated Rep. James Moran (D-Va.).

"Let's be honest," said Rep. Jim Kolbe (Ariz.), the chamber's only openly gay Republican. "This bill has been brought to the House floor by the leadership solely because of election-year politics." Citing an "affront to this institution," he pointed out that "this same legislation was considered in the Senate, where it didn't even receive a majority vote, much less the required two-thirds." (. . .)

[Georgia Republican] Phil Gingrey, the floor leader/gynecologist, posited that the debate was "about values and how this great country represents them to the world." After the vote, he elaborated: "This is probably the best message we can give to the Middle East in regards to the trouble we are having over there right now."

No leadership. No ideas. No conscience. The sole message from the Republican party is this: "Sure, everything is going to hell in a rocket sled. But don't you hate queers?"