Former Wisconsin Rep. Mark Neumann (R) has announced that he will run for the state’s open senate seat in 2012 and will likely challenge former Governor Tommy Thompson for the party’s nomination. In declaring his candidacy during a radio appearance this morning, Neumann predicted that he will face openly-gay Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D) in a general election — who is also expected to announce her candidacy in the coming weeks — and promised to bring her record “to the forefront.”

But as Denis Dison notes, Neumann will first have to answer for several homophobic remarks he made in the 1990s, when as a freshman congressman, he told the New York Times that “If I was elected God for a day, homosexuality wouldn’t be permitted, but nobody’s electing me God.” A year later, speaking before the Christian Coalition, he remarked, “If somebody walks in to me and says, ‘I’m a gay person, I want a job in your office,’ I would say that’s inappropriate, and they wouldn’t be hired because that would mean they are promoting their agenda. The gay and lesbian lifestyle (is) unacceptable, lest there be any question about that.”

Neumann clarified his statements in 2010 by explaining that he regrets saying that he would want to be God:

Eventually, though, he did apologize for a portion of his quote in The Times. “The part about me being God for a day is the problem with that,” said Neumann, who is Lutheran. “I’m not God, don’t intend to be and hope I never have that much power….I regret talking about the fact that I would be God,” Neumann responded. [...]

“Let me give you an answer to your question,” Neumann said. “You’re asking me, ‘Do I stand by those (remarks)?’ The answer to your question is, I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, the same as I’ve believed all my life. I’m going to stay focused in this race on jobs and economic development to the best of my God-given ability.” [...]

Neumann served two terms Congress and waged and unsuccessful challenge to then-Sen. Russ Feingold (D) in 2008. In 2010, he ran for Governor and lost the Republican nomination to Scott Walker. Notably, Tommy Thompson will likely have to deal with his own LGBT clunkers. Thompson isn’t known as a firebrand on conservative social issues, but during his failed bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, Thompson said that businesses should be allowed to discriminate against gay people. He immediately walked back his position, citing a broken hearing aide and a need to use the restroom.

Wisconsin does not prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or expression, but in 1982, “became the first state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation” in employment. The law was signed by Republican Governor Lee Dreyfus. In 1996, however, did remove language from the GOP platform “that opposed civil rights protections for those discriminated against because of their ‘sexual preference.’”

Philipp Lahm, captain of Germany’s national soccer team, warns gay players against coming out in his new autobiography:

LAHM: I would not advise any gay professional footballer to come out. I would fear that he could end up like Justin Fashanu who after he outed himself was driven into such a corner that he ended up committing suicide.

While Lahm is certainly not wrong to be concerned about the homophobia inherent in athletics, his approach seems misguided. Fashanu was the first openly gay soccer player (as well as Britain’s first black player to get a £1 million contract), but reports suggest his suicide 13 years ago was largely motivated by allegations of sexual assault and false newspaper reports that there was already a warrant out for his arrest. Suggesting other players might end up like Fashanu encourages a culture of fear, not a culture of acceptance.

Soccer, like most sports, has a homophobic culture. Swedish player Anton Hysen can certainly speak to the hatemail he receives as one of the only out professional soccer players, but enduring such negative responses is not necessarily worse than the stress of closeting oneself. If Lahm really wants to help out his gay teammates, he might instead consider language of acceptance and the leadership he would take as captain to create a welcoming team environment. In fact, his team could improve as a result, based on studies that show the positive impact being out has on an individual’s own performance and the performance of those around him. The world of athletics might have a long way to go in combating homophobia, but the solution is to welcome openly gay teammates, not discourage them.

Kerry Eleveld’s overview of where the GOP presidential candidates stand on LGBT issues offers this interesting (and promising) anecdote about former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) consulting with the Log Cabin Republicans at the governor’s mansion in 2008. At the time, Huntsman was the first “sitting governor – let alone a Republican governor – [who] had invited anyone from the GLBT community into his office to discuss policy”:

At the time, a number of anti-LGBT measures had been plaguing the state legislature and the divisive signature campaign to place Proposition 8 on California’s ballot that year was in full swing with strong backing from the LDS church, which is headquarted in Salt Lake City.

Huntsman wondered how he could help improve the political climate for LGBT people in the state. “The first question he asked was, ‘What are the kids doing? What are the youth involved in? What problems do they have,’” recalls Nimer, who is president of LCR’s Utah chapter. “Then he came up with the idea of having a party at the mansion.”

The inaugural LGBT reception at the governor’s mansion was held that summer with more than 75 guests and has since become an annual event that now draws around 150 people.

As Eleveld explains, shortly after the meeting, Huntsman came out in support of civil unions and “a series of pro-LGBT measures known as the Common Ground Initiative aimed at securing basic rights for LGBT Utahans in areas such as employment, housing, transfer of benefits and medical-decision making.” He continues to speak out in favor of these positions on the campaign trail — although his somewhat contradictory stance on marriage equality is often left unchallenged by the media — and even reached out to LGBT groups in Utah after announcing his presidential bid.

Concerned Women for America’s Janice Crouse described same-sex marriage as “contrary to human nature” and “the strength of the nation,” but acknowledged that Americans are becoming more tolerant of marriage equality, during an appearance on Washington Journal this morning. “The truth of the matter is there is an awful lot of families who have homosexual members and people are very hesitant to speak out about the issue,” she said, “[but] we speak out because we care very deeply about children.” Crouse went on to argue that every study has shown that children do better with a mother and a father and became visibly agitated when the host offered research to contradict her claim:

HOST: You talked about some of the studies that have been done. This from Time Magazine…a study shows that children of lesbians can actually do better than their peers…It looked at how children fared who are raised by same-sex female couples and it talk about how they actually not only did as well…[and] scored higher than children in heterosexual families on some psychological measures of self-esteem and confidence, did better academically and were less likely to have behavioral problems.

CROUSE: That’s strictly propaganda. When you look at the studies that have been done in mainstream universities, you see a completely different story. I just really hate to see isolated studies like that. When you have overwhelming research from American researchers and universities that contradict that kind of thing, how dare they put that out as though that’s an overwhelming finding? I don’t know what you’re referring to there, but I would be willing to bet that there are some flaws in that methodology.

Watch it:

The lesbian parenting study is part of the mainstream scientific consensus. The research was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Pediatrics and conducted by scientists at the University of California at San Francisco and the University of Amsterdam. In fact, scholars, at USC and New York University recently considered a range of existing studies, including research on gay and lesbian parents, and found that while it’s ideal for a child to be raised by two parents who are “responsible, committed, stable,” the parents’ gender “doesn’t cause radical differences.” The American Psychological Association has similarly concluded that “beliefs that lesbian and gay adults are not fit parents have no empirical foundation. Lesbian and heterosexual women have not been found to differ markedly in their approaches to child rearing.”

Conservatives often prefer to cite a government study — which found better health outcomes among children in nuclear families — as proof that gay couples should be prohibited from adopting children, but as Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) explained during the recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, that research included same-sex couples in its definition of family.