In probably the most tasteless campaign ad we’ve seen in a while, Bilerico reports that a Florida gay Republican group used a picture of US Ambassador Chris Stevens’ lifeless body in a campaign ad bizarrely attacking President Obama on gay rights and Israel. The ad is reproduced at right.

The ad, by the Broward County Log Cabin Republicans, a local branch of the lead gay GOP organization, suggested that Ambassador Stevens, who was killed in Libya last month, was gay (even though that’s been a rumor, but it was never confirmed).

The Stonewall Democrats, the national gay Democrat organization, responded:

“The Log Cabin Republicans of Florida have cravenly disrespected the life and legacy of a United States civil servant with this ad. Put bluntly, they have crossed the line of civil discourse and good taste by including an image of the corpse of slain US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens being carried through the streets of Benghazi, Libya,” said Jerame Davis, National Stonewall Democrats Executive Director Jerame Davis. “It is simply unimaginable to me how the muddy and ludicrous message of this ad in any way justifies disgracing the memory of a man who gave his life in service to his country. This level of depravity and moral indifference must not be allowed to enter our political discourse.”

This continues a trend I documented earlier of Republicans using the Libya attacks as an “opportunity” to politicize the deaths and help Mitt Romney.

Republicans can attempt to distance themselves from this action, but in the end, the example was set from the top to treat the death of a US ambassador as an “opportunity,” as the Romney staff called it, and local Republicans are acting accordingly. The Romney campaign, and House Republicans, should have never set this train in motion in the first place.