Bet sometimes he even stands a round of drinks for his gay friends with Senate Republican Caucus cash, that's how flexible he is.

We've been writing from time to time about the year-long exercise in mirror-gazing and self-promotion that is SC political consultant Wesley Donehue's Man Project*. As he spends 365 days trying to build a client base outside the political backwater that is SC (outside a few months before the GOP presidential primary every four years) "to become a better man in America's South," he reports how he's evolving and becoming more tolerant:

Let me say outright that I’m a very open-minded and accepting white southern male. I try to be friends with everyone, and I myself accept the decisions of my gay friends. Personal choice don’t bother me like they do some folks. While my religion says that homosexuality is a sin, and I believe it is, I myself am a sinner.... (Day 201).

Day 312 – People continuously ask me why I love San Francisco so much. Remember, I’m from South Carolina. People here aren’t familiar with the West Coast, much less the Bay Area. To compensate for their lack of exposure, many employ narrow-minded stereotypes of the region, and its people.

“That’s where those queers live,” they’ll say. Of course by “queer” they mean homosexual, an offensive term linked to intolerance. Ignoring its narrow-minded uses, let’s roll with the word queer for a minute.

Brad Warthen has this item up today:

At first, I thought this was the influence of longtime dairyman and Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, since it came from his Senate Republican Caucus. I remember when Harvey used to pass out cow-shaped erasers over at the State House. (Or was that his brother Bob? No, I believe it was Harvey.)

Now, I see it’s something else. Sigh. The Kulturkampf does go on, doesn’t it?

Dang. I heard something about this flap on the radio the other day, and it reminded me of something else entirely that I wanted to share here on the blog, and now I can’t remember what it was.

Oh, well. It will come to me again at some point…

Wesley Donehue is political director of the South Carolina Senate Republican Caucus.

No wonder Donehue wrote, on Day 298, of  "my ever-growing mental prison of frustration."

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*On July 23, 2012 Donehue's progress to become a better man in America's South was measured by this item: "We live in a age where every staffer is a spokesman for your campaign. Set policies accordingly."