I can’t make this stuff up:

“Perry, speaking from the library in the Governor’s Mansion, referred to a portrait of Sam Houston, whom he called Texas’ greatest governor. He told how Houston’s principled stand against slavery and Texas’ joining the Confederacy cost him his governorship.” Said Perry: “That’s the type of principled leadership, that’s the type of courage that I hope people across this country on this issue of Scouts and keeping the Boy Scouts the kind of organization that it is today. If we change and become more like pop culture, young men will be not as well served, America will not be as well served and Boy Scouts will start on a decline that I don’t think will serve this country well as we go into the future.”

What Perry fails to realize is that the supporters of slavery were also taking a stand, it was just a less principled stand that paid no heed to the rights of a minority. It’s not enough to merely take a stand, you need to make sure that you’re standing up for equality, like the abolitionists did. Every Grand Dragon of the KKK is taking a stand just like Fred Phelps is taking a stand. You can take a stand and still be a completely homogenous asshole who is an anchor, not a boon, to the progress of society. History only remembers the moral stands kindly.

Perry clearly has more in common with the racists of the Antebellum South than their adversaries, and history will paint his legacy with equal shame.