[Guest post by Isaac Chotiner]
Well, this should just about end the New York governor's race. Carl Paladino, the unhinged GOP candidate, said the following today:
[Being homosexual] is not how god created us, and that's not the example that we should be showing our children. Children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family than being gay. And I don't want them to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option. It isn't.
The New York Times reports that Paladino's speech had originally included this line:
There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual.
However, the speech was delivered without this smear. The really interesting question is how on earth these remarks came to be part of Paladino's prepared speech (to a group of Orthodox Jews). Either Paladino is writing his own speeches (probably, er, a mistake), or the people writing his speeches have no political sense whatsoever. Either way, he's toast now.
P.S. It would be simplistic to blame this medium-hot rhetoric for crimes like the awful torture of some gay men in New York on Friday. Still, Paladino's decision to give this speech two days later is at best unseemly.