It's Tough to Make John McCain Look Good...

...but his primary opponent, J.D. Hayworth, is sure giving it the old college try:

[Hayworth] declared that he supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage—because to do otherwise could lead to a man marrying a horse.

"You see, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, when it started this move toward same-sex marriage, actually defined marriage—now get this—it defined marriage as simply, 'the establishment of intimacy,'" said Hayworth, during an appearance on a Florida radio show on Sunday. "Now how dangerous is that? I mean, I don't mean to be absurd about it, but I guess I can make the point of absurdity with an absurd point—I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse. It's just the wrong way to go, and the only way to protect the institution of marriage is with that federal marriage amendment that I support."

You know, as hilariously absurd as this is on the one hand, evoking Rick Santorum blathering about man-on-dog sex, and Dan Henninger yammering about human-snake marriage, dehumanizations so preposterous that they are as silly as they are cruel, on the other hand, drawing an equivalence between same-sex partnerships between consenting adults, and bestiality, which is nonconsensual by definition, is a key narrative of the rape culture: Rape culture is treating straight sexuality as the norm. Rape culture is lumping queer sexuality into nonconsensual sexual practices like pedophilia and bestiality. Rape culture is privileging heterosexuality because ubiquitous imagery of two adults of the same-sex engaging in egalitarian partnerships without gender-based dominance and submission undermines (erroneous) biological rationales for the rape culture's existence.

Not so amusing, that.