Michele Bachmann Continues to Be the Worst

[Content Note: Homophobia.]

This is one of the most remarkable bits of conservative projection I've seen in awhile, which is really saying something:

[Republican Representative from Minnesota Michele Bachmann] told talk show host Lars Larson in an interview at CPAC that the gay community distorted the Arizona bill by making it about gay rights — even though the bill's sponsor himself said it was about same-sex marriage.

"There's nothing about gays in there, but the gay community decided to make this their measure," Bachmann said. "And the thing that I think is getting a little tiresome is the gay community have so bullied the American people and they have so intimidated politicians that politicians fear them and they think they get to dictate the agenda everywhere. Well, not with the Constitution you don't."

She added that gay people and "activist judges" are trying to take away her freedom: "If you want take away my religious liberties, you can advocate for that but you do it through the constitutional process and you don't intimidate and no politician should give away my religious liberties or yours."

Everything about this is obviously amazing—the gay community as the "bullies" who are trying to take away other people's freedoms; marriage equality framed as taking away other people's religious liberties—but my favorite (ahem) part, as always, is the casual othering in this ubiquitous rhetorical flourish: "The gay community have so bullied the American people." As if "gay people" and "American people" are mutually exclusive groups.

Only in the bizarro world of conservative projection is seeking equality "bullying," while telling an entire marginalized population they're not even legit citizens of their own country is Traditional Values.

These fucking people.