Photo: ERIK S. LESSER/Corbis

Once- and future-embarrassing candidate Rick Perry is still out there saying Rick Perry things. With a delusional eye toward 2016, Perry scored his first major gaffe of the nascent pre-campaign when asked last night about the Texas Republican Party’s new platform supporting “reparative therapy” for gays and lesbians. “Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that,” he said. In San Francisco. “I may have the genetic coding that I’m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way.”

We, of course, have the ability to decide not to listen to Rick Perry, but in a sick way, we kind of like it.

Even among a crowd of Perry supporters, “the comment still drew a murmur of disbelief,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports. While no one expects evolved views from the Texas governor, the next step in this well-worn cycle will be issuing a non-apology for his perhaps unartful phrasing while maintaining more subtly that he really does think homosexuals are an abomination. It’ll be good practice for him if no one can convince him not to run.