Rush Limbaugh likes to defend himself against charges of homophobia. In fact he frequently trots out homophobia (along with racism and sexism) as examples of things that liberals incorrectly believe about conservatives.  Liberals think all conservatives are homophobic, racist, and sexist, and isn't that terrible of them?  Not to mention hypocritical.

It is clearly true that Rush Limbaugh is not a homophobe.  He does not fear gay people.  He just hates them, is all.  You can hate something without fearing it.  I for example hate rhubarb, but I can assure you that it does not frighten me.

Today he took a call from a rambling caller who was upset about a bizarre children's book she had read. The book is called How To Get Married… By Me, The Bride and is filled with terrible things.  Chaos!  Travesties!  Women asking for a man's hand in marriage!  Women marrying other women!  Oh and also people marrying flowers, dogs, their fathers, and any damned thing.  

The book is meant to be a "lighthearted romp," but I think that most people would agree that a book which cheerfully announces that you can marry a flower, your father, or your teacher is ill conceived at best.  But that's okay, because there are a lot of children's books in the world, and if you don't like one, then you shouldn't buy it.  End of story.

Naturally, Rush takes the description of the book as an attack on The Institution of Marriage, and by the gays, no less.  Because the book's authors are both female, Rush presumes that they are lesbians trying to indoctrinate America's hapless children.  (Sally Lloyd-Jones is the author, and Sue Wade is the illustrator.  This is standard in the world of children's literature.  Unlike adult literature, there is no reason to expect that the authors would have any relationship beyond the professional.  Rush doesn't have any children, so I suppose he can be forgiven for making that assumption.)

Of course, Rush never refers to gay people directly.  He simply says "people" or "them."  And curse "them" for sending us down the slippery slope TO HELL.  Rush takes any opportunity to trot out the slippery slope argument with regards to marriage, and unfortunately How To Get Married plays right into that fear.  It's as if Rush wrote the book himself, under a pseudonym, in order to frighten conservatives.  

Combine this with Rush's penchant for gleefully using the word "queen" to refer to Barney Frank, and his obnoxious names for gender reassignment surgery ("addadictome" and "chopadickoffame" in case you were curious) and you have yourself one righteous mess of gay-bashing stew.  

It never ceases to amaze, the way that people conflate both senses of the word "conservative."  There is no connection between "feeling that gay people are wrong and threaten The Institution of Marriage" and "believing in a fiscally lean national policy."  And yet, those two kinds of conservative are so closely aligned as to be almost inseparable.  Aside from the Log Cabin Republicans, obviously, the Republican party has made a lot of hay out of the homophobia and hatred of Americans.