Ha Ha Funny Bigot Jokes, by Mike Huckabee

[Content Note: Gender essentialism; misogyny; homophobia; rape culture.]

While still doing the presidential dog-and-pony show in Iowa, GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee made a terrific joke about how women go to the bathroom together, the punchline of which is that he's homophobic:

You see, I have a concern that one of the reasons we lose battles we should win is because we wait to see whether or not the crowd is going to be with us. My question to you tonight — it's nice to see a nice, full crowd of folks here in this wonderful Point of Grace Church — but I just wonder if you were the only one who showed up tonight, would you still be ready to take on the cause? Because the fact is we don't like to do things by ourselves. We really don't. Guys like to go fishing with other men. They like to go hunting with other men. Women like to go to the restroom with other women. I don't get that. I can tell you this much: if I ever say, 'I have to go to the restroom' and some guy says, 'I'll go with you,' he ain't goin' with me. That much I know.

Oh my aching sides.

The "humor," such as it is, in this joke is predicated on: 1. The implication that the only reason a man would want to go to the bathroom with another man is if he's gay; 2. Obliquely referencing a pernicious stereotype about gay men being predators. In the mild version, Huckabee's implying that other guy might peek at his junk; in the less mild alternative, Huckabee's implying that other guy might try to rape him.

Huckabee asserts he's "not against anybody. I'm really not. I'm not a hater. I'm not homophobic," but someone who isn't homophobic doesn't make homophobic jokes that only get a laugh from other homophobes because of their central agreement that Real Men don't go to the toilet together, and any weirdo who would is a gay creeper.