It didn’t take long for GOP state Rep. Bob McDermott to turn his U.S. Senate campaign against incumbent Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz to his signature issue: anuses.

McDermott led a rally at the Capitol against House Bill 1697, which would require sex ed programs in Hawaii public schools to include “positive and accurate representations” of LGBTQ+ people, people of color and disabled people.

“This stuff is gross folks,” he said in a letter to parents reminiscent of his earlier anatomical railing against the state’s controversial “Pono Choices” sex education program.

“They are going to teach kids that things like anal sex and distended rectums are OK!” he claimed. “Behaviors such as mouth on anus will be presented on par with male/female reproduction.”

At his rally, he described relations involving gay and trans people as “bizarro stuff that fringe people do.”

The thing is, HB 1697, which passed the House 44-4 and now goes to the Senate, doesn’t say anything about anuses or sexual acts. It simply requires that teachers and other educational staff receive training to destigmatize these communities and “promote sexual health.”

Crude bigotry such as McDermott traffics in is exactly why it’s necessary to teach basic human respect for marginalized people, who are mostly just trying to figure out lives that make sense to them, like all of us, and hurting nobody else.

McDermott started his Senate campaign solidly by criticizing the Hawaii congressional delegation’s disunity on the Red Hill water crisis and releasing his own plan for shutting the giant military fuel tanks that polluted Oahu’s aquifer.

But that issue lost steam when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin unexpectedly announced Red Hill would be closed, while Schatz basked in securing funds to empty the tanks and figured prominently in forcing the issue by threatening to oppose confirmation of Defense Department appointees until Red Hill was resolved.

So McDermott returned to his political comfort zone, the anus.

If he hopes to be taken seriously in this Democratic state, he’d have better luck offering solutions for the more pressing challenges of these difficult times rather than playing out on the political stage whatever potty-training traumas he may have experienced.

It’s not wrong for parents to question what their children are taught on sensitive matters; their concerns always deserve a fair hearing.

It’s also reasonable to ask whether the Legislature has any business putting burdensome new mandates on the schools — unfunded, of course — when educators are struggling to help students catch up on immense learning losses suffered in the pandemic.

Hopefully, there will be further discussions on these matters in the Senate if it decides to pursue HB 1697.

What we can’t accept is unhinged rhetoric that lacks personal decency and respect, and seeks to demonize put-upon minorities for political gain.

A guy who repeatedly spat the F-word at a female colleague on the House floor and discussed his wife’s bosom on Comedy Central isn’t in a position to call others “gross.”

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.