One of the top GOP Senators, Jim DeMint, says gay people should be banned from teaching in public schools — and so should unmarried women who fornicate. DeMint has never been shy about expressing this creepy atavistic view, but for some reason he’s in the news for it today.

“People are beginning to see that there’s no way we can pay the interest on our debt and every week, we’re borrowing money to pay the debt we have and are creating new programs that are costing more money,” he said. “Hopefully in 2012, we’ll make headway to repeal some of the things we’ve done, because politics only works when we’re realigned with our Savior.” …

DeMint said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.

DeMint’s rationalization for this stunningly bigoted and misogynistic opinion is the standard issue theocrat’s ridiculous frame-flipping defense: he casts the issue as an example of freedom and rights.

The freedom to oppress others and the right to take away their rights.

“(When I said those things,) no one came to my defense,” he said. “But everyone would come to me and whisper that I shouldn’t back down. They don’t want government purging their rights and their freedom to religion.”

It’s hard to believe anyone swallows this transparent bullshit excuse for bigotry, but in the new, not-improved, 2010 version of the Republican Party it’s considered an excellent argument.