Texas' Lieutenant Governor Gets a Little Too Homophobic Even for Fox News

Meme-posting transphobic Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick made an appearance on Fox News last night, where he did his level best to randomly hint that Beto O’Rourke is gay, much to the surprising chagrin of host—and fellow bigot—Laura Ingraham.

Responding to O’Rourke’s recent comparison of America’s immigration laws to slavery, Patrick called his fellow Texan a “moron” and said that O’Rourke wants to “force people into reeducation camps” over reparations.

“What happened to this guy?” Ingraham asked. “Wasn’t he a little more reasonable, not so long ago?”

“No,” Patrick answered, before casually dropping in the following, extremely outdated, bigoted euphemism for homosexuality: “He is so light in the loafers, he floats off the ground sometime.”

Um, what?

For what it’s worth, accusing people of being “light in the loafers” isn’t a new line for the GOP. President Donald Trump’s favorite ghoul and longtime Republican operative Roger Stone used the same phrase to attack CNN’s Jake Tapper earlier this year.

In any case, even Ingraham—no stranger to homophobia herself—seemed to realize that Patrick’s comments crossed a line, and offered a lifeline.

“Now Dan, when you said ‘light in the loafers,’ you just meant ‘not consequential,’ correct?” she interjected, noting “people might think something else.”

Patrick quickly agreed, walking back the comment, noting that all he meant was that O’Rourke “flaps his arms a lot…he’s just a lightweight.”