The Gay-Talk Express strikes again.

John McCain needs to decide who he wants to be. Two weeks ago, McCain met with gay Republican leaders (people his staff had met with repeatedly before). After the religious right flipped out, McCain then met with virulently anti-gay religious right leaders, and promised those leaders that he would be more vocally anti-gay in public in the future. Then one week after that, McCain outfoxed those same religious right leaders by hiring a gay man to one of the most senior positions in his campaign.

Now, I think it’s great that John McCain has such an affinity for openly gay men. In fact, McCain has had openly gay senior staff on the Hill and in his campaigns going back to the early 90s, at least. Again, that’s great. Although John McCain is still pretty bad on a lot of gay issues, having so many gay men on staff over the years has to have changed his heart, and the hearts of McCain’s other staffers. It’s tough for McCain and his staff to be too anti-gay when he’s got senior gay people permeating his entire outfit, senior people putting a face to the anti-gay policies that people like Burress are demanding that McCain promote. Not to mention, gays leak like sieves. The more gays McCain hires to senior positions, the more those gays are going to leak the details of anything McCain is working on that even smells of being anti-gay. It’s a small town, and an even smaller gay community. People talk. And even gay Republicans aren’t usually too willing to let people like Phil Burress do much damage.

So, while I still think that Barack Obama will do 100 times more good than John McCain for all Americans, including gay Americans, I’m heartened that John McCain remains so committed to weaving openly gay men, and even gay activists, into the senior-most reaches of his campaign. Regardless of what McCain promises the likes of Phil Burress, the rainbow cabal is in place, and the cabal rarely lets us down.