He may have a reputation for being cool and one of the hardest men on the planets, but when it comes to gay rights issues, Chuck Norris is, well, an ass. His latest assault on equality is a column he wrote on the TownHall website, in which the conspiracy minded, avowedly conservative Republican argues that President Obama is trying to force the Boy Scouts Of America to be gay.

The BSA currently has a ban on openly gay people serving in leadership positions, or indeed been Scouts themselves, but has recently agreed to review this proscription – just review it, as it hasn’t said it’ll overturn it. Norris is a bit up in arms about this and blames connections he sees between Obama and business executive James Turley, a member of the Boy Scout’s national board, who has pledged to try to end the ban on gay scouts and leaders.

Norris asks, “Is Turley working on his own initiative, or has the White House prodded him with perks and favors?” Perhaps unsurprisingly Chuck can’t answer that question in his scaremongering piece, which poses a series of unanswered, “Is it a coincidence?” questions.

However, Chuck doesn’t bother to offer a reason why it would be so terrible if Obama were pushing for a pro-Gay scouts, or why the current ban is reasonable (other than spouting on about first amendment rights). It is perhaps the most insidious homophobia when someone doesn’t even argue why something is bad, simply assuming people will agree that the word ‘gay’ makes it so, and indeed that you can smear Obama by trying to attaching him to it.

Since his post GLAAD has pointed out that “Norris ignored the fact, however, that Republican candidate Mitt Romney spoke out in favor of allowing gay Americans to participate in the Boy Scouts of America in a 1994 debate when he stated: ‘I believe that the Boy Scouts of America does a wonderful service for this country. I support the right of the Boy Scouts of America to decide what it wants to do on that issue. I feel that all people should be able to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.'”