GOP presidential candidate and Georgia resident Herman Cain says he would have no problem hiring an openly gay staffer to work for him if elected president. And he said so with the leader of the Iowa anti-gay marriage movement at his side.

The story was reported by Jennifer Jacobs at the Des Moines Register as part of the newspaper's "2012 Iowa Caucuses" special online section.

Cain was in Iowa on June 6 at a speech hosted by the Family Leader, headed up by Bob Vander Plaats. Vander Plaats and the Family Leader were part of a campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court judges after they voted to legalize gay marriage in the state in 2009. Joining Family Leader was the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage.

At the June 6 speech, a blogger asked Cain would oppose hiring a gay person to work for the White House if he became president.

"Nope, not at all," Cain answered. "I wouldn't have a problem with that at all. I just want people who — I want people who are qualified."

Cain got some mixed reactions from those attending. From the Des Moines Register story:

After the speech, Don Thurman, 78, of Oskaloosa, a retired minister of the conservative Church of the Nazarene, said he would prefer that no president appoint a gay staffer.

“I just think that we need to curb the homosexual movement in our country. It’s getting out of hand and I think we need to put some restrictions on it and not allow them to be involved in certain things.”

Thurman said Cain’s comment “concerns me,” but he nevertheless thinks Cain is “an excellent candidate because he’s straight forward, because he makes a lot of sense, because he has a positive attitude of changing our country back to right.

Now, however, if the person is Muslim, that's a different story for Cain. Cain has said he wouldn't appoint a Muslim because of his fear of Sharia law and the Muslim faith being somehow indoctrinated into our government.

Here's what he said when asked if he would appoint a Muslim as a federal judge or to his cabinet, according to Thinkprogress.org:

"No, I will not. And here’s why. There is this creeping attempt, there is this attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government. This is what happened in Europe. And little by little, to try and be politically correct, they made this little change, they made this little change. And now they’ve got a social problem that they don’t know what to do with hardly."

Top photo: Presidential contender Herman Cain (via Facebook)