Andrew Sullivan this morning:

Last night, it struck me that every single statement on gay rights by the GOP candidates, however brutal, could have been leavened by some small concession that gays are serving their country honorably, that gays are a part of many families and indeed the American family, that they should not be demonized by the majority, etc. But none of the candidates could say a single positive thing. Or rather they believed they could not survive a GOP primary by saying anything even vaguely positive about gay Americans. In some ways, that’s more telling.

If in the process of conducting your political campaign you give a silent consent to hate then you are just as much a part of the mob as if you had born one of their torches yourself and screamed for blood.   Anyone who cannot muster the moral backbone to denounce hate is unfit to be director of public parking, let alone president of the United States.   It is that simple.