Rick Perry attacks gays, AGAIN. Just an effort to deflect attention from the ongoing rumors?

Here's the video.

And here's the definition of a "beard."

It's increasingly feeling to me like GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry is using attacks on the gay as a kind of "political beard" to deflect attention away from the "is he gay?" rumors that have been dogging Perry for two decades.  No one has been able to prove that Perry is gay, but no one was able to prove that former head of the Republican party Ken Mehlman was gay either.  And since the rumors about Mehlman turned out be true, it's understandable that some might be less willing to dismiss the Perry rumors out of hand.  Thus Perry has an ongoing problem he might feel he needs to deal with.

And it's really more than the rumors.  It's the way Perry carries himself, the way he talks.  It sets my gaydar off, and it sets off the gaydar of a lot of my political friends.  Even Rachel Maddow devoted a segment of her show to Perry's queer, shall we say, mannerisms.  It's just not the way straight men traditionally (pun intended) carry themselves.

That doesn't prove Rick Perry is gay, and I'm not saying he is gay.  I'm saying that there's a lot of buzz about whether Perry could a closeted gay, and it makes me wonder if his sudden embrace of political gay-bashing is an effort to deflect attention from those rumors.