Marco Rubio At CPAC: Just Because I Don’t Believe Gay People Are Equal Doesn’t Mean I’m A Bigot

Today, GOP wunderkind Marco Rubio addressed the right-wing circle-jerk that is CPAC. He managed to give his address without lunging for a bottle of water, so kukos there.

But he did manage to insult the LGBT community, pro-choice people—and common sense.

Above, Rubio explains how just because he believes marriage should be legally defined as between a man and a woman doesn’t mean he’s bigoted against same-sex couples.

I respect people who disagree with me on certain things, but that means they have to respect me too. Just because I believe states should have the right to define marriage in a traditional way does not make me a bigot. Just because we believe that life, all human life, all life, all human life is worth of protection in every stage of its development doesn’t make you a chauvinist. In fact, the people who are actually close minded in American politics are people who love to preach about the certainty of science in regard to our climate, but ignore the absolute fact that life begins at conception.

Really, that’s what you’ve got? “Let’s agree to disagree?”

Is “agreeing to disagree” what Mississippi, GOP state Rep. Andy Gipson meant last May, when he invoked the biblical passage that “if a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, they are to be put to death”?

Is that what the new Pope meant when he said marriage equality was a tool of the devil?

Is that what anti-choice people mean when they call abortion providers baby-killers?

Speaking of reproductive rights and the beginnings of life, we always thought Rubio was fluent in English, but it seems he has problems understanding the difference between the words “fact” and “opinion.”

h/t: Think Progress