Who was a more dedicated enemy of gay Americans this week — Carl Paladino or Barack Obama?

Paladino, the oddball Republican candidate for governor, said children should not be “brainwashed” into thinking “homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option.” He branded himself as a bedroom flat-earther, one of the last holdouts to aver that sexual orientation is something you choose. “That’s not how God created us,” he said. Then who created all those gay priests?

Paladino said on WNYC that “there are some things in this world we all must be angry about,” and that among these are “Hitler’s extermination of six million Jews,” “the brutal mistreatment of black people down south” in the Civil Rights era — and gay marriage: “I will veto all legislation that mocks our sacred institution of marriage and family. I will veto any gay-marriage or civil- union bill that comes to my desk. Yes, I’m angry. Real angry at the way our politically correct beliefs are mistreating innocent children.”

Gays are like Hitler? Maybe he meant to say gays like “Springtime for Hitler.”

CLICK HERE TO SEE PEW POLL RESULTS ABOUT GAYS IN THE MILITARY AND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

Paladino also said being gay was a “lifestyle choice.” Whoops — sorry. That wasn’t him. That was President Obama’s key political adviser Valerie Jarrett, who was specifically assigned by Obama to spread a message of tolerance for gays and meet with the family of a gay Minnesota teen who killed himself.

Paladino also said he opposes gay marriage because, “My religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.” Whoops — sorry — that is his position, but the words are those of Barack Obama, speaking in 2004.

It’s Obama’s Justice Department that this week was expected to launch a court fight defending Bill Clinton’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law, a policy so nonsensical that even the military is over it, and announced it would defend the Clinton-approved Defense of Marriage Act. Obama said during his campaign that he would repeal both DADT and DOMA. Two years later, he has given gays practically NADA.

If he was brave enough to state those positions when he was seeking votes, why did he do so little follow-up as president? He could at the very least instruct his Justice Department not to appeal a federal judge’s ruling in Massachusetts that DOMA is unconstitutional or a California federal judge’s ruling that DADT is unconstitutional. Why is he instead expected to fight both rulings — fight his own beliefs? A White House spokeswoman said the Justice Department “traditionally” defends acts of Congress that are challenged in court.

Tradition? Isn’t that a Republican argument — straight marriage is the traditional norm, therefore it can’t be changed? Some traditions are wrong, aren’t they? The Justice Department does not have an absolute duty to defend every federal law. Twenty-one Senate Democrats urged Attorney General Eric Holder not to appeal the judge’s decision to eliminate DADT. The lefty Daily Kos website called the idea that Obama must defend DOMA and DADT a “zombie lie.”

Obama said during his campaign that he thought the Afghanistan war was a worthy one, that he had no intention of implementing a single-payer health-care system, and that he was against gay marriage. In all three cases, his political base thought he was a hypocrite — that he was saying one thing to please the rubes he needed to mollify to win the White House but that his true agenda was that of an unabashed liberal. In all three cases, he surprised the left by sticking to his stated policies. Now, the pollsters tell us these same voters are dejected and depressed. If this is all their chief executive is doing for them, why should they lift a finger for him on Nov. 2?

Their plight illustrates the peril of voting for the party of hypocrisy. The Democrats’ most cherished views are so extreme that they dare not speak them aloud. Instead, in each election cycle, the base hopes to mislead centrist voters, sneak their programs into law via the side door or the courts, then call the results progress and dare their opponents to try to turn back the clock.

The problem with this strategy is that the left wing can’t know for certain whether their president actually supports their core beliefs. If he does support them, is he willing to fight for them? Say what you will about George W. Bush, but “he had genuine integrity and as much political courage as any leader I ever met,” Tony Blair has said. “Right or wrong, it led to decisive leadership.”

The left mutters that its savior has become FauxBama. No one ever called his predecessor Slick Georgie.