Alfred Kinsey famously – and, as later studies seemed to prove, erroneously – reported that 10% of the American population was gay. For decades, the American gay rights movement celebrated and pointed to the Kinsey Report; "1 in 10" and "10%" were popular gay rights slogans when I came out in the 1980s. But later research would show that our numbers were smaller. A recent study conducted by the Williams Institute at the University of California found that 3.8% of adults in the United States were lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Just as gay America once celebrated Kinsey's 10% figure, America's religious conservatives/extremists celebrate these newer, lower estimates. They argue that the LGBT community is so tiny – just 9 million Americans, according to the Williams Institute – that our calls for civil rights protections and full civil equality shouldn't be taken seriously. Rights, they implicitly assert, should be awarded only to minority communities that have attained some sort of critical mass. (The Williams Institute's estimates, for the record, are believed to underestimate the size the LGBT community, just as Kinsey once overestimated it – people lie about their sexual orientations; how do you control for the closet; what about LGBT children, etc.)

This is a curious argument coming from the same people – evangelical Christians – who seem to regard Israel as the 51st state in our union. There may be "just" 9 million LGBT Americans – but that number that is greater than the entire population of Israel (7 million). And if we are "just" 3.8% of the US population, the LGBT community – a figure that includes hundreds of thousands of LGBT Jews – is still more than twice the size of the total Jewish community in the United States (1.4% of the population), to say nothing of the Mormon community (1.7%). There are 3 million more LGBT Americans, according to the William Institute's figures, than there are Mormon Americans. And some of those American Mormons, of course, are gay.

LGBT Americans, in short, are not "too small in number", or too insignificant a portion of the American electorate, to be equal under the law – or to be taken seriously as a political force. There may "only" be 9 million of us, if the Williams Institute got it right, but here's a fun fact: Barack Obama beat John McCain in 2008 by 9,000,000 votes and change.

And as more and more of LGBT Americans are out of the closet, fully integrated into our communities and workplaces, and fully embraced and valued by our families, we are a minority community that punches above its weight at the ballot box. Our heterosexual mothers and fathers, and friends are less likely to vote for politicians who bash LGBT people, lie about us, and pledge to discriminate against us.

Which brings us to the Republican primaries.

At every GOP debate over the last few months – and there were a shitload of them – the GOP candidates competed for the title of Most Hostile to LGBT Americans. Michele Bachmann, whose husband Marcus offers gay-to-straight "conversion therapy" among his Christian counselling services (and who has been the butt of a thousand jokes told by our late night comedians), stated that bans on gay marriage weren't discriminatory because gay men, like straight men, were free to marry women. In Rick "Oops" Perry's alternate universe, American children are not allowed to celebrate Christmas because gays are serving openly in the military. Herman Cain insisted that being gay is a choice. (I notoriously challenged Cain to prove it by choosing it himself: "Suck my dick, Herman.") And Mitt Romney, who once promised voters in liberal Massachusetts that he would do more to advance gay rights than his then-opponent for a Senate race, liberal icon Ted Kennedy, backpedalled furiously – pledging to push a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

But it was Rick Santorum – the most notorious homophobe in the race – who wound up being the biggest winner of the Iowa caucuses. Santorum, who once compared consensual sexual contact between adults of the same sex to child rape and dog fucking, technically finished second, eight votes behind Mitt Romney. But Santorum's come-from-behind near-victory was the story of the night, and the political press has declared that Santorum has, ahem, the big 'mo.

I have a history with Rick Santorum. In 2003, when Santorum, in an interview with the Associated Press, first compared gay relationships to child rape and dog fucking (have I mentioned that Santorum has compared gay relationships to child rape and dog fucking?), I held a contest to redefine Santorum's last name. The winning definition: "the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." ("Sometimes" is the most important word in the new definition of santorum; if you're doing anal sex correctly, there won't be any santorum – lower- or upper-case.) And since 2003, the new definition has the been the No1 Google return when you search "santorum".

This has been dubbed "Santorum's Google problem", as more Americans than ever are using the online media to learn about politicians. But Rick Santorum and the GOP have a much bigger problem on their hands than a joke my readers made at Santorum's expense nearly eight years ago. The GOP's doubling down on homophobia, the non-stop gay bashing, is going to cost them votes – and not just the votes of 9,000,000 (or more) LBGT Americans out there, but, again, the votes of tens of millions of our straight family members, friends and coworkers.

The numbers of LGBT Americans aren't growing. We may not know what our true numbers are – we may never know – but we do seem to be a set and constant percentage of the population; despite what Herman Cain believes, people do not and cannot choose to be gay. Republican politicians can go on describing us as a threat to the family or, as Rick Santorum once described us, a threat to "homeland security", but the American people aren't buying it anymore. The homophobes now find themselves outside the mainstream: Americans supported the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell by a three-to-one margin, yet nearly every GOP candidate for president has pledged to reinstate the policy. A majority of Americans now support marriage equality – equal rights and responsibilities for same-sex couples – but almost the entire GOP field pledged to write anti-gay bigotry into the US Constitution.

The GOP has doubled down on homophobia in an attempt to appease its increasingly elderly, marginalised and out-of-touch base. Betting on homophobia may pay off politically in the short run (ask Rick Santorum), but it is a losing bet for the GOP in the long run – one that will cost them at the ballot box this November.