McCain Does Not Believe Gay People Can Be Parents

It's no secret that last week was not a good one for John McCain. His old friend, Phil Gramm, demonstrated such a sad case of foot in mouth disease with his "mental recession" line that it was almost as though Gramm was acting as an Obama campaign covert operative. Then McCain had a little trouble performing, shall we say, when asked by a reporter to clarify his position on insurance coverage of Viagra but not of contraception. But those may not be the only media moments from last week that come back to haunt McCain on the general election campaign trail.

In an interview with the New York Times, McCain sought to affirm his conservative credentials. This included stating definitively that he opposes adoption rights for gay and lesbian couples. On Sunday, celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton (real name Mario Lavandeira) selected McCain's statement on the matter as his "Quote of the Day." The quote simply reads, "I think that we've proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don't believe in gay adoption." At last count Hilton's post garnered around 700 comments, some of which are blatantly homophobic, (which is ironic considering Lavandeira himself is openly gay, which begs the question: if you disapprove of gay people so much why are you visiting a blog run by one?). But for the most part, the comments -- many of which are too colorful to print here -- highlight a fundamental problem for John McCain as he tries to formulate a winning strategy for November: How to win an election decided by voters in the middle, while continuing to pander to voters on the right.