On Sunday, gritty gravy god Mike Huckabee appeared on CNN's State of the Union to offer a number of regrettable analogies about homosexuality, comparing it, variously, to drinking, classical music and bacon-wrapped shrimp.

Explaining how he could have (possibly imaginary) gay friends, Huckabee told host Dana Bash, "People can be my friends who have lifestyles that are not necessarily my lifestyle," before veering off into a kind of folksy anti-gay poetry (emphasis added):

I don't shut people out of my circle or out of my life because they have a different point of view. I don't drink alcohol, but gosh—a lot of my friends, maybe most of them, do. You know, I don't use profanity, but believe me, I've got a lot of friends who do. Some people really like classical music and ballet and opera—it's not my cup of tea.

Later, the former Arkansas* governor offered similarly awful similes about his inability to accept same-sex marriage as a Christian, saying:

It's like asking someone who's Jewish to start serving bacon-wrapped shrimp in their deli. We don't want to do that—I mean, we're not going to do that. Or like asking a Muslim to serve up something that is offensive to him, or to have dogs in his backyard.

Predictably, Huckabee's comments were poorly received, with most media outlets using some variation on CNN's "Huckabee Compares Being Gay to Drinking, Swearing."

Of course, Huckabee's dumb point about the gay "lifestyle" was slightly different from—while no less insulting than—what that headline suggests, but it was understandably tough to parse all the stuff about drunk opera fans and Muslim dogs.

[Image via Getty Images]