The great thing about the radical right is just when you think they can’t get any more ridiculous, they prove you wrong. Take the case of the Minnesota Child Protection League (MCPL). Based on its name, the group members probably think that they are superheroes, but in fact they are comic relief, with a dangerous twist.

MCPL might better be called the Minnesota Bully Protection League. It is adamant in its opposition to the Safe and Supportive Minnesota Schools Act, a bill that would beef up the state’s pitiful 37-word bullying statute, one of the weakest in the nation. The measure would define bullying, the groups protected against it, and steps that schools must take when a bullying incident takes place. That’s the reality.

Then there’s the world according to MCPL spokeswoman Barb Anderson, who also heads the Parent Action League, an outfit that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group. Taking a leap into the muddy waters of the right-wing psyche, Anderson says the proposed bill “contains language that will usher in another sexual revolution, sexual anarchy, unrestricted sexuality to love whoever you want — polyamory — and its going to force its acceptance on all of us.”

Andy Birkey at The Colu.mn has been tracking the MCPL and its supporters. Needless to say, MCPL members represent the flotsam and jetsam of the right. Several are–surprise!–Republican party activists. Needless to say, those connections frequently lead to Old Crazy Eyes herself, Michele Bachmann.

The bill itself has become an all-purpose magnet for every disproven calumny that animates the right. Chief among them: gay men preying on children.

“In our society where children are being sexualized, homosexuality normalized, and the list of genders has grown from two to LGBTQQIA and that is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual and counting,” Anderson claimed at a Tea Party meeting (natch) last November. “The LGBTQQIA will soon be adding the letter P for ‘pedophile’ because they have now declared themselves a sexual orientation, that they’re born that way and don’t they have a right to their sexual desires? The sexual desires of adult are trumping the well-being of children.”

Can you imagine what Sesame Street would be like if MCPL sponsored it? “Today is brought to you by the letter P, for pedophile.”

The bill itself faces a tough fight in the legislature. Religious conservatives are pulling out all the stops, perhaps to make up for their loss with marriage equality last year. With any luck, they will be able to keep up their losing streak.

H/t: The Colu.mn and Andy Birkey

Image credit: MN Child Protection League Facebook page