Poor, poor, Rick Perry. He admits he "stepped in it" when he compared members of the LGBT community to alcoholics the same week his state's Party adopted an odious anti-gay plank endorsing "reparative therapy." What's a good ol' boy to do?
Why, change the subject, of course, and dismiss the whole thing as unimportant anyhow. After all, we have so much more important things to be talking about, like creating good jobs. Never mind that the "job creators" are still free to fire people for being gay, or seeming to be gay (even if only in the boss' imagination). No, no, we don't need to be talkin' about that. Why would y'all even bring it up?
Let's just leave it up to the states. Yeah, the Tenth Amendment, that's the ticket. What could possibly go wrong? Certainly not gay dads being refused recognition of their parental status for their own biological children, despite DNA test evidence. Say what? Oh, that did happen. And in Texas?
But, gee whillikers. Didn't you hear me say "jobs?" Everyone knows that's what Republicanism is all about.
Video of the very smart-guy-bespectacled Guv tapdance explain his way through this whole mess at a breakfast forum sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
Wouldn't it have just been easier just to apologize and move on? Oh, I forgot. That's unthinkable.
Update: Transcript of Gov. Perry's remarks added below the fold.
When you get distracted, I'm thinkin' San Francisco, and I got asked about an issue, and instead of sayin', 'You know what? We need to be a really respectful and tolerant country to everybody,' and gettin' back to talkin' about the -- whether you're gay or straight you need to be havin' a job, and those are the focuses I want to be involved with, instead of gettin' -- which I did, and I'll readily admit that I stepped right in it -- uh, but that's a great example of being -- if you're really going to be the party that's gonna go talk to everybody, and say, 'Listen, you may not agree with all of my positions, but getting you and your loved ones, and your family the opportunity to live a better life because we have created a climate in this country where you're going to have a job, and a good job, and a good paying job." If we'll do that, then I think we'll be successful. If we spend all of our time being deflected over onto this social issue or that social issue, then, uh [unintelligible question from other person] I don't think you can, I mean, listen, we're all, we're an incredibly diverse mosaic of, of uh, uh, a country, and it, and it goes back again to my Tenth Amendment belief that a lot of these issues need to be decided at the state level. These social issues are a couple of 'em that I think, you know, our country will be happier. I think that just, you know, you know if we're economically happy, and we allow people to go live in the environments of which they're most comfortable, then we're going to be a happier country, and that ought to be one of our goals as a government, not just to make our people economically sounder, but find ways so that they live in peace and happiness.