The Low Point of the "Debate"

I don't know why I continue to put myself through this torture. Unless it is that, like the Faux News-Google-Orange County FL staff who set up the stage and placed Romney and Perry within arm's length of each other, hoping that the verbal sparring will turn into physical confrontation.

It was as boring and sad and scary as I expected it to be, except for the appearance of former New Mexico governor Gary "Dogshit" Johnson, who got in the best dig by saying that his neighbor's dogs are responsible for more "shovel ready" jobs than Barack Obama.

I admit, I had to laugh. It was a good laugh line. Too bad Johnson won't be around much longer, since he seems to be the best with the one liners out of everyone on the stage.

But the low point of the whole two hours (two hours, that's all that it was? Jeez, it seemed like six or more. I was calling it the Orlando Death March long before it was over...) was our buddy Google-me Rick Santorum, who fumbled and stumbled his way through a question from now-openly-gay soldier Stephen Hill, currently serving in Iraq (cue chorus of boos from the audience) concerning a new GOP administration's intended handling of the gays-in-the-military issue:

Yeah, I — I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military. And the fact that they're making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to -- to -- and removing "don't ask/don’t tell" I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military's job is to do one thing, and that is to defend our country.
We need to give the military, which is all-volunteer, the ability to do so in a way that is most efficient at protecting our men and women in uniform.
(APPLAUSE)
And I believe this undermines that ability.
(APPLAUSE)
MEGYN KELLY of Fox News: So what -- what -- what would you do with soldiers like Stephen Hill? I mean, he's — now he's out. He's — you know, you saw his face on camera. When he first submitted this video to us, it was without his face on camera. Now he's out. So what would you do as president?
SANTORUM: I think it's -- it's -- it's -- look, what we're doing is playing social experimentation with -- with our military right now. And that's tragic.
I would -- I would just say that, going forward, we would -- we would reinstitute that policy, if Rick Santorum was president, period.
That policy would be reinstituted. And as far as people who are in -- in -- I would not throw them out, because that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration, but we would move forward in -- in conformity with what was happening in the past, which was, sex is not an issue. It is -- it should not be an issue. Leave it alone, keep it -- keep it to yourself, whether you’re a heterosexual or a homosexual.

Get that? "Any type of sexual activity has no place in the military"!

What is it with these people, that it all comes down to sex? And not just sex, but "sexual activity"? So I guess that all of you straight people in the military, when President Santorum (god, it gives me the willies just to write that) takes over, you are all cut off for the duration.

Jeez, think of the depressed local economies that will result in every town that exists at the front gate of every US military base in the world. No more hookers, no more massage parlors, no more party girls in the barracks. Yeah, way to go President Ricky.

I guess the GOP really wants a bunch of mindless robots, automatons whose only job it is to kill the "enemy" (whoever they are determined to be) and not be real people, with real lives and real issues. Supporting the troops? Yeah, right...

And no, except for some dueling "Read my book!" jibes from Romney and Perry, they didn't get into any fights. Too bad. I was kind of hoping for some WWF smackdown action.

The Pace Race

I note that our old good buddy, General Peter Pace, still isn't backing off his bigoted stand against gays in the military. However, he did seem to toss gay and lesbian military members a bone by stating, "Are there wonderful Americans who happen to be homosexual serving in the military? Yes. We need to be very precise then, about what I said wearing my stars and being very conscious of it," Pace added. "And that is, very simply, that we should respect those who want to serve the nation but not through the law of the land, condone activity that, in my upbringing, is counter to God's law."

Okay, put aside the Rumsfeldian ask-and-answer-your-own-question rhetoric, and you'll see that he's reluctantly acknowledging the fact that closeted gays are serving already.

But when he descends into intrepreting the laws of god and dictating morality, he's exceeding his authority as a professional military man and a general officer.

He went on to say, essentially, that sex is limited to a man and a woman in a marital relationship. Okay, so what does he have to say about the rampant fornication, prostitution, adultery and out-and-out rape that takes place in every port town, every military post town, across the world, wherever there is a military presence?

Old Pete remains strangely silent on that side of the equation. Could it be that it's not that awful nasty homo-sessual sex that's involved?

And this is a guy that apparently wants to be president. Well, it's not like he could ever be worse than Der Monkey Fuehrer, but haven't we finally had enough of right-wing rule in this country? Isn't it finally time to elect a progressive who will be saddled with the enormous job of undoing the damage wreaked by the neocons over the last seven years?

And that's why we all have to actively campaign for whoever the Democratic nominee turns out to be. I'm no big fan of Hillary, but I'd rather see any Democrat in the office of president than any Rethug. Especially now that the top three on the right have all come out in support of the bankrupt supply-side economic theories of Saint Ronald.

Gays in Uniform? The Horror!

A new exhibit at San Francisco's GLBT Historical Society contains, among other things, the dress uniform, medals and rusty footlocker of Leonard Matlovich.

Matlovich, who died in 1989 after serving three tours in Vietnam, chose for his epitaph, "When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."

Matlovich and other gay individuals who served with honor and distinction in America's military are being honored the GLBT Historical Society.

And it's long overdue. I hope to see the exhibit this fall when I go to San Francisco on vacation and pay my respects to those men and women who chose to hide their true selves so they could serve proudly in the armed forces.

Now all we need to do is convince the assholes at the top of the heap that we have always had gay men and women in the military, and it didn't hurt any of us -- or "unit cohesion", the latest buzzword in the Jim Crow-like approach to keeping our gay brothers and sisters in the closet.

And to discharge that dozen or more speakers of Arabic -- when we are bogged down in an Arab country -- simply because they happen to be gay is unconscionable. It is, in fact, mind boggling.

This new exhibit is a step in the right direction, bringing focus to the hidden and closeted gays who chose to serve their country and were trashed for their efforts.

It's About Time

A dozen gay veterans, male and female, from all branches of the service, have filed suit against the federal government seeking to overturn the idiotic "don't ask don't tell" policy concerning gays in the military.

Over 10,000 military personnel have been discharged from the service since the policy was introduced in 1993. And now we're in a time when the military can't meet its enlistment goals, so you'd think they'd want to keep every single able-bodied soldier, sailor, airman and marine on duty.

To those who say they don't want a gay person sleeping next to them or taking a shower with them, I say one word: bullshit. If you served in the military, then chances are you already did those things. You just didn't know it because the gay person sleeping next to you or showering with you was forced to keep his/her sexual orientation secret.
And somehow you survived it, didn't you?

It is unconscionable to prevent these patriotic Americans from serving their country if that decision is based solely on their sexual orientation. Let's hope the lawsuit is successful.

"Don't Ask Don't Tell" Revisited

I know that I have a number of GLBT readers of this blog, and I've been a champion of civil rights for everyone for many years. I've also railed on occasion about the shortsighted actions of the US military when it comes to gays serving in uniform.

Even at this late date, the Pentagon is still kicking out an average of two persons per day, a decision based solely on their sexual orientation.

So I am happy to learn that PFLAG is issuing a call for personal experiences with the military's so-called "don't ask don't tell" law.

If you are a veteran, or the parent or friend of a veteran, who has been affected by this ridiculously stupid law, please consider contacting PFLAG's Steve Ralls sralls@pflag.org and sharing your stories.

It's past time to start fighting back. This country belongs to all of us, and those who want to serve in the military should have that option, regardless of their gender, race or ethnicity, politics, or even -- shock! -- sexual orientation.

The Texas Taliban

Down in the West Texas cowtown of Amarillo, there's a hate-group of right-minded "christian" citizens who have simply had enough with any of those new-fangled social(ist) beliefs and practices that are more modern than, say, the heyday of the Spanish Inquisition and are literally taking up arms to fight them.

They call themselves officially "Repent Amarillo" and they have an amateur-looking quasi-military-themed website at "triple-w dot repentamarillo dot com" (I don't want to give them the satisfaction of having a liberal blog link to them). On the front page they blatantly claim "this site is not designed for non-christians, It is designed as a recruitment tool to call certain Christians to spiritual warfare..."

Got that? "Spiritual" warfare.

They've got themselves a handy "warfare map" with virtual pushpins identifying Sexually-Oriented Businesses, Occult Witchcraft, Idol Worship and "Compromised Church's [sic]".

Okay, that alone would be not much more than an interesting boyscout aberration, but when it comes to warfare, these assholes practice what they preach.

Think Progress has the story:

An evangelical Christian hate group called “Repent Amarillo” is reportedly terrorizing the town of Amarillo, Texas. Repent fashions itself as a sort of militia and targets a wide range of community members they deem offensive to their theology: gays, liberal Christians, Muslims, environmentalists, breast cancer events that do not highlight abortion, Halloween, “spring break events,” and pornography shops.

. . .

Calling Repent an “American Taliban,” blogger Charles Johnson notes that the group’s moniker “Army of God” is a rough translation of “Hezbollah.” Led by a man named David Grisham, a security guard at a nuclear-bomb facility called Pantex, Repent first gained media attention in Texas following a campaign to boycott Houston for electing a gay mayor.

. . .

According to a new exposé by the Texas Observer, Repent set out earlier this year to destroy a discreet club of swingers they discovered in town. On New Years eve, the harassment began, with Repent members, almost exclusively young men, showing up in military fatigues and bullhorns, blaring Christian music at the swingers’ club building. The swingers, made up of “regulars” of middle aged, working class couples, were then stalked at every following visit to the club. Repent not only took video of each member, but obtained the swingers’ license plates and dug through their trash, informing neighbors and coworkers of what was once private.

You can read the full Texas Observer report to see everything that these paramilitary dickwads are up to.

Warfare usually includes guns and violence along with terror tactics. How long will it be before actually and literally heads will roll? And how long before this pernicious paramilitary group spreads to other locations? The Texas Taliban, indeed...

And how comforting is it, really, to learn that the HMFIC of this outfit is a security guard at a nuclear facility??!!

Would Barry Goldwater Be Welcomed into Today's GOP?

Given this quotation from a Goldwater speech on the Senate floor in 1981, I would say not:

On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?
And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."

Wow. I've often said that today's "conservatives" would hate Barry Goldwater for his comments about gays in the military, and now this...

By the way, he was also prompted, by Jerry Falwell's opposition to Ronald Reagan's appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor to the US Supreme Court, to comment, "I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."

Like I say, no Rethug Party for Barry Goldwater. Too honest, too straightforward, too outspoken, too independent, too small-d-democratic and especially too anti-fundo-religious.

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[HT to The Truffle for bringing the first quote to light.]