Remember “Groundhog Day,” the 1993 film in which Bill Murray has to keep repeating the same day over and over again?

Covering LGBT issues here in Georgia — heck, being an LGBT Georgian — sometimes seems like that.

I felt this way again May 17 when Karen Handel announced her bid for the U.S. Senate seat being left open by retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss (D-Ga.).

The race had already drawn a crowd of GOP big wigs, including U.S. Reps. Paul Broun, Phil Gingrey and Jack Kingston, and all are genuinely awful when it comes to gay issues.

Gay ‘Groundhog Day’

On the most recent Human Rights Campaign Congressional scorecard on LGBT issues, Broun scored a measly 15 out of 100, while Gingrey and Kingston earned a flat 0.

Given that crowd, LGBT Georgians could already expect to be in the crosshairs in a race to the right for the GOP nomination.

But if the race was likely to go anti-gay before, the entrance of Handel virtually guarantees it.

No stranger to statewide campaigns, Handel served as Georgia’s secretary of state and ran unsuccessfully for governor. In those races, she tried to paint herself as a true conservative, like the rest of the right-wing ilk that gets elected here.

The problem for Handel — and it has been a problem for both her and us in every statewide race she runs — is that she comes off sounding more like a political opportunist than purist, thanks to her campaigns a decade ago for Fulton County Commission.

Back then, you see, Handel courted gay voters, sought endorsements from gay groups, and attended a gay election forum. Now, of course, she does everything she can to distance herself from that moderate record.

As Handel’s past races show, her opponents consistently bring up her history on gay rights to try to show that she is not as holier-than-thou conservative as they are, and Handel in turn takes pains to show she can be just as anti-gay as the boys.

It happened when she ran for secretary of state, and it happened with a vengeance in her 2010 run for governor, where she lost to Nathan Deal in the Republican primary.

Deal and fellow GOP candidate John Oxendine (Remember him? He’s the jerk who, as state insurance commissioner, tried to block the city of Atlanta from offering domestic partner benefits) went after Handel’s Fulton record.

Handel offered absurd excuses even after GA Voice revealed emails that showed her correspondence with a gay political group then, and she even went so far as to speak out against gay adoption and gay parents to prove her homophobic credentials.

The whole thing was so ridiculous it even sparked a segment on Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” mocking the campaign’s focus on “the gay monster.”

The problem, of course, is that unlike either “The Daily Show” or “Groundhog Day,” this isn’t really a comedy.

It will be tempting to laugh when two-faced Karen gets her due, as she inevitably will in this race.

But it’s not funny that this is the level of homophobia required to win a statewide race in Georgia, and whether the ultimate winner is Handel or one of her more consistently anti-gay brethren, we know who the loser will be: LGBT Georgians, again.

Luckily, the gay story that seems to keep repeating these days at the national level is one where we are winning.

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed a marriage equality bill into law May 14 — making his state the third to approve marriage for same-sex couples in just two weeks, and the sixth in the past six months.

The marriage equality law also came only six months after Minnesota became the first state ever to have voters reject a ban on same-sex marriage.

The list of states where gay couples can marry (or will be able to marry when the laws take effect) now totals 12 plus the District of Columbia: Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Think about that: In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to allow gay couples to marry. In less than a decade, we’ve reached 12 — almost 25 percent of our states.

That number could increase to 13, and include the most populous state in the nation, if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against California’s Proposition 8 in one of two gay marriage cases currently pending before the high court.

LGBT Americans could also gain federal recognition of our legal marriages if the court issues a “big” ruling in the other marriage case, which challenges the Defense of Marriage Act.

Those rulings are expected by the end of June, just in time for the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots that sparked modern Gay Pride celebrations.

Let’s hope we get decisions that Handel and her friends will hate.