RICK PERRY: I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. As President, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion. And I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage. Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again. I’m Rick Perry and I approve this message. MORE
RELATED: It was clearly intended to elicit a strong reaction, and don’t think that that jaw-dropping comparison went unnoticed. In just a few days, the video garnered scores of negative reactions on YouTube and, at the time of writing, 399,152 dislikes. Just to put that into perspective, that’s more dislikes than viral star Rebecca Black’s video for “Friday” has received, and that song was the butt of endless jokes for months on end. Her official video is currently at 255,704 dislikes. She’s practically adored compared to Perry. MORE
RELATED: The rumors of gay relationships persist, and occasionally flare. During the Texas gubernatorial primary, Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s campaign caused a bit of a stir when it was discovered that they had embedded meta tags in their campaign web-site that optimized it for searches including the terms “gay,” and “Rick Perry”. In non-nerd speak, this means that when those terms were Googled, Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s campaign website was one of the first results. As I began looking into this, I repeatedly heard detailed rumors of a past gay relationship between the Governor and his former Secretary of State, Geoff Connor. A version of this story included Perry’s wife, Anita, catching Connor and Perry in the act and screaming at him the next day from her office phone. The most common retelling has it that the Governor was caught, struck a quick (and expensive) deal with his wife that allowed him to avoid an immediate trip to divorce court, and swore everyone involved to secrecy. I also learned of a new rumor making the rounds. Several sources told me they had heard that the Governor is in a current gay relationship with one of the two (male) chefs that Perry he keeps on staff at the tax-payer funded ($10,000 a month) temporary governor’s mansion. What’s interesting, given the longevity and evolving nature of these rumors, is that as far as I can tell, no media outlet has ever publicly asked the Governor the simple question: “Are you gay?” MORE
DAILY MAIL: Texas Governor Rick Perry fears opponents will try and smear him with gay slurs if he decides to make a run for the presidency. According to the Beltway website Politico, the married governor’s camp is bracing itself to tackle the unfounded rumours that date back way before he had the White House in his sights.Speculation over his private life became so widespread that Mr Perry, 61, went public with a denial in 2004. In an interview with the Austin American-Statesman, he dismissed unsubstantiated claims that he was gay and had split from his wife as a ‘smear campaign’ being orchestrated by his political foes. He claimed at the time that the rumours were ‘not correct in any shape, form or fashion,’ adding, ‘They are irresponsible. They’re salacious. They’re hurtful to my family.’ MORE
*NAME: Jesus H. Christ