Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate, has made a name for himself by supporting tea party insurgents against establishment Republican candidates in this year’s hotly-contested primaries. For instance, he supported Rand Paul over Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) preferred candidate and endorsed Joe Miller over his own Senate colleague Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) called this behavior “a new and shocking development.” Some new and revealing comments DeMint made over the weekend are likely to cause even more division among Republicans, while also providing yet further evidence of the tea party’s hostile takeover of the GOP.

Speaking to the “Greater Freedom Rally” on Saturday at a church in Spartanburg, SC, DeMint actually advocated for fewer basic freedoms for gays and unmarried women. According the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, DeMint “said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.” These comments come just days after DeMint and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) successfully blocked approval of a National Women’s History Museum, on the grounds that it unnecessarily duplicated existing local museums honoring quilters and cowgirls, and other sites such as a lilac garden in Washington state.

While DeMint’s extreme statements and tea party endorsements have grabbed headlines, less well-known is the fact that two political action committees controlled by DeMint — MINT PAC and the Senate Conservatives Fund — are spending millions of dollars to elect GOP candidates from coast-to-coast. According to OpenSecrets.org and a ThinkProgress review of the most independent expenditure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, DeMint’s PACs have lavished nearly $2 million on fifteen GOP candidates whose success or failure at the ballot box will determine which party controls the Senate in the 112th Congress. The beneficiaries of his largesse include:

– Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio: $406,250

– Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck, who famously implored GOP primary voters to choose him over his rival Jane Norton because he “[doesn]’t wear high heels”: $359,654

– Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, herself a former teacher: $337,903

– Utah Senate candidate Mike Lee: $251,945

– Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller: $180,067

– Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell: $130,326

– Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul: $79,421

– Pennsylvania Senate candidate Pat Toomey: $68,796

– Wisconsin Senate candidate Ron Johnson: $51,858

– Washington Senate candidate Dino Rossi: $37,000

– South Dakota Senate candidate John Thune: $7,500

– North Carolina’s Richard Burr, Georgia’s Johnny Isakson, Ohio’s Rob Portman, and Indiana’s Dan Coats have each received $5,000.

The Hill reported last Friday that DeMint plans to spend hundreds of thousands more on another round of television ads targeting his Democratic Senate colleagues Harry Reid (NV), Michael Bennet (CO), and Russ Feingold (WI) in order to further aid challengers Angle, Buck, and Johnson. One wonders whether these and other GOP candidates, including rumored 2012 hopeful Sen. John Thune (R-SD), will continue to accept money and support from their putative leader or whether they will disavow DeMint’s hateful and extreme attack on unmarried women and gays by returning his money and refusing any further support.

Rep. Mike Pence’s (R-IN) surprise win of the presidential straw poll at the Values Voters summit last month has generated speculation that he is positioning himself for a White House bid as a champion of social conservatives, who have been somewhat pushed aside by the tea party’s focus on economic issues.

On Saturday night, Pence traveled to Iowa — a key state for any presidential hopeful — to speak at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition dinner. The Iowa Independent reports that Pence made an “impassioned plea” for the audience to vote this November in order to “protect your Christian values and freedom.” In his speech, Pence suggested that advancing socially conservative policy is more important than fixing the economy, bizarrely implying that marriage equality will further damage the economy:

Pence said although economic issues are important for the country right now, its a lack of morality that pains the nation most. Everything that is great about America, he said, could come crashing down because of the lack of values in Washington.

“We will not restore this nation with public policy alone,” he said. “It will require public virtue and that emanates from the traditional institutions of family and religion.”

He continued by shooting down sentiments that moral issues must wait until the failing economic climate passes. Moral issues, he argued, are the bedrock of the American nation.

“To those who say that marriage doesn’t matter, I say, ‘you would not be able to print enough money in 1,000 years to pay for the government you would need if the traditional family continues to collapse.’”

Beyond its insensitivity to gay Americans, Pence’s prioritization of preventing marriage equality over fixing the economy if an affront to the 15 million unemployed Americans who, regardless of their stance on social issues, no doubt see joblessness as a more pressing threat than two men getting married.

Meanwhile, polling indicates that the economy is by far the most important issue for Americans, while a slight majority of the public now favor same-sex marriage. Reflecting this, Pence has presented a very different message when speaking to anyone outside of far-right Christian groups. In an interview with Radio Iowa two days before his speech, Pence said, “Creating policies that will open the doors of opportunity to families during this difficult economy and create jobs has to be the first priority and I believe will be the first priority if Republicans are given another opportunity to lead.” Late last month, Pence told ABC news that “the most important things to do right now” are to “[g]et this economy moving again, get spending under control, reform government.” Pence has even attacked President Obama for supposedly not priortizing the economy.

Pence seems to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth, depending on who’s listening. When speaking to social conservatives, who may be a crucial base for a presidential bid, Pence dwells on their unpopular issues; but when speaking to the country as a whole, he focuses the economy — something that actually matters to most Americans.