As many of you know, when something big happens in the news involving gays (or a number of other subjects), Pam Spaulding loves to hop over to Free Republic to see what sort of hilarious pout-rage and fear their commenters are hunting and pecking onto the internet through their AOL accounts.
Well, as you would imagine, they are feeling frightened, betrayed, outraged and confused by the fact that Admiral Mullen, Defense Secretary Gates, and now even Colin Powell have given full-throated endorsements to repealing the ridiculous policy. Pam collected a bunch of their comments, so you should click over to read them all, but I wanted to highlight one comment that really struck me as particularly funny:
If the ban is lifted homosexuals will flock to the military and overrun it and have the full force of military law behind them, the military will be theirs.
Oh. My. God.
Bear in mind, the commenters at Free Republic think of themselves as the tuffest of the tuff, the patriotest of the gun-totin’est patriots. You know, manly mens! And that’s why this is so funny, because in the space of just over 140 characters, this commenter, whoever he is, has revealed what a terrified scaredy-puss he really is. He’s actually frightened that gay people will take over the military. And do what? God only knows what ludicrous fantasies this poor thing has created in his little head. You see, wingnuts act like they’re the strongest guys on earth, but they’re all false bravado. This person, whoever he is, has concocted a world where gays are the ultimate boogeyman, and has endowed us with superpowers we can’t even imagine. (Really, we can’t, because hey, we’re actually just normal people living our lives.)
But this is the same weak-kneed fear that’s still keeping them up at night over the failed underpants bomber. They’re terrified of everything. “We want our country back!”, they scream. Jon Stewart was right when he said that the country they want back is the country they knew when they were children, whenever that was. These are people who have grown up into weak human beings who reach for their firearms every time they hear the house settle. The only time they can remember not being afraid is when they were children, when they had strong adult figures to shelter them from fear. They want that back. This also explains why they react so positively to empty bravado in presidents, movie characters (they worship Gladiator), and talk radio hosts. In their minds, George W. Bush, Russell Crowe, and Rush Limbaugh are protecting them. (And when they need the good old-fashioned commiseration of a shared night terror, there’s always Glenn Beck. He cries with them!) It’s also, conversely, why they feel threatened by liberals, because they see in us a silent self-confidence that doesn’t feel the need to prove itself. No, we’re really not broken up about the dumb underpants bomber. We want him prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and we want the government to do its job in fixing the holes that allowed him to slip through, but that’s about the extent of it. We’re just not losing sleep over it.
The real reason they’re threatened by gays and lesbians openly serving in the military isn’t their juvenile, prurient obsession with what goes on in military showers. That’s a factor, but it’s not primary, because most of these people have never served and will never serve in the military. No, the real reason is that if gays and lesbians are able to serve openly and honestly, then they, the Free Republic sort of wingnuts, will have to endure the reality of the fact that there are faggots out there who are stronger, faster, and braver than they ever will be. These types fetishize the military beyond belief. The first question they ask when they meet someone who’s recently come home from war is “Did you kill anybody?” Trust me, that is the last question returning troops want to answer. So for these types of people, the mere possibility that the man (and yes, it’s about their fear of gay men) who captured the terrorist they fear the most is a…faggot?…is simply a bridge too far. As long as DADT remains in effect, these Freepers can remain in blissful denial, in a magical land where all gay men are girly and weak, where they never have to consider the possibility that there are gay men and women actively protecting the freedoms they cherish the most.
The picture above is of a billboard put up by the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center a few months back. It’s a simple, nonthreatening message, an acknowledgement of reality. A valiant uniformed Marine. The fact that he’s gay is just one piece of his reality. The billboard was, of course, vandalized within days.
I wasn’t able to watch the DADT hearing today, but from what I’ve read, Admiral Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates each made a strong case for repeal, framing the issue correctly as one of integrity. Admiral Mullen had this to say:
“It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do,” Mullen said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
“We have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me, personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals, and ours as institutions,” Mullen added.
Precisely. LGBT people fight and die for the freedoms we hold dear, and under the current policy, they’re asked to lie or face discharge for revealing the same thing that heterosexuals reveal every time they mention their spouses or significant others.
For his part, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this:
“I fully support the president’ decision,” Gates said. “The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we … best prepare for it. We have received our orders from the commander in chief and we are moving out accordingly.”
Let’s all remember who appointed Robert Gates Secretary of Defense.
Well, guess who’s just cold losing it in his britches over this? If you read the headline, you know that it’s The Peter! Let’s see what kind of analysis he’s cooking up over there in Wingnuttia:
At a time of recession and a potentially long-lasting jobs crisis, a two-front war and an ongoing national security threat from Islamic radicals who would just love to see a planeload of Americans be bombed into smithereens, I doubt that a top priority in the minds of most Americans is to promote open homosexuality in our military. And yet that is the course that President Barack Obama — and apparently some of his sycophantic military advisers — have chosen.
Yeah, see, because here’s the thing, Peter. If you support people keeping their jobs in a recession (which I assume we both do), it’s probably not a good idea to keep policies around that call for the firing of American citizens based on their sexuality. Especially when those people are fighting and dying for your freedom to write stupid words on the internet, as LGBT citizens are and will continue to. (Yes, Peter. Gays defend your freedom. Deal with it.) Also, since we’re fighting a two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as fighting against terrorist networks at home and abroad, it’s probably a good idea to keep as many Arabic and Farsi translators around, and several dozen have been discharged under the policy. In fact, there’s a lot of evidence that DADT discharges disproportionately affect highly-skilled servicemen and women overall. (Hello, Daniel Choi!)
The problem for Obama ‚Äî and Gates ‚Äî and every liberal that celebrates the prospect of sexual perversion gaining a stronger foothold in the Armed Forces of the greatest nation on earth– is that the American people have a say in stopping this latest “gay” capitulation.
You’re right, Peter, the American people DO have a say. I’m not sure how that’s a problem though, since as many as 79% of Americans support DADT repeal. (For any who are unclear, 79% is most Americans.) Another poll puts the figure at 69%, including 58% of conservatives and Republicans. Any way you slice it, Peter, you are the minority here. I’m sorry you don’t like them apples, but that’s the only kind we grow.
Let’s look at Peter’s specific arguments (I obviously use the phrase “specific arguments” loosely). He says that allowing gays to openly serve would:
devastate morale in our Armed Forces;
Wrong. As of 2006, 73% of troops are personally comfortable with gays and lesbians. That number is only going up, because all numbers involving support for gays are going up, especially in younger generations.
lead to a drop in enlistment and retention of good soldiers;
Right. Because our best, brightest and strongest troops are just as bedwettingly afraid of gay people as Peter is, I’m sure. But by the way, in case you missed that: If you support gay people and you’re a member of our Armed Forces, Peter LaBarbera thinks you’re a bad soldier. Or if a member of your family supported gay people before he/she died protecting us, Peter thinks your departed loved one was a bad soldier.
discourage moral-minded and religious men and women of high character from seeking military service;
Got that? If you are among the majority of troops who support gay people, you are not morally minded and are of low character, according to Peter LaBarbera.
violate the privacy concerns of sexually normal servicemembers: will new “Gays-Only” showers be constructed at U.S. bases the world over ‚Äî or will there just be special showering hours for men-who-are-sexually-attracted-to-other-men and lesbian-practicing women? And what about the bisexuals? (“Transgenders” have been left off the list for now ‚Äî as even giddy pro-homosexual activists realize that is going too far at this time.);
Actually, Peter, gays are ALREADY in the showers in the Military, and it’s no big deal. As Patrick Murphy said a couple of years ago when he embarrassed Elaine Donnelly up one side and down the other, it’s an insult to our brave troops to think that they can’t handle being around gay people, even in the showers. It’s also puerile that Peter believes that all gay people are somehow always trolling for sex with straight people. Grow up and get over your fears, Peter. Plus, NONE of us want you, so you can rest easy.
subject hundreds of thousands of small-town, traditionally-minded recruits to Orwellian, government-run brainwashing “diversity” propaganda training, as the military becomes officially part of modern man’ effort to erase God’ law and wisdom on this issue. Such pro-homosexuality “diversity” training dulls the mind and corrupts the spirit ‚Äî two results that surely will not find their way onto retooled U.S. military recruitment brochures;
Oh, good lord, people who did not read/did not understand 1984 should not be using the term “Orwellian.” And if being accepting of gays and lesbians “dulls the mind,” why are there so few fundamentalist Christians in our best universities?
further alienate the United States of America from the Muslim world; believe it or not, Mr. Obama, but the celebration of homosexuality that is all too common between our shores is nothing to brag about.
Peter is essentially saying that we need to appease radical Muslims by making sure we don’t offend them.
God, all fundamentalists, whether Muslim, Jewish, or Christian, are exactly the same.
I think this quote from Glenn Greenwald sums up the LaBarberian opposition to gays in the military quite nicely. He’s talking about Bill Kristol, Michael O’Hanlon, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (wingnut-UT), and other heterosexual men who oppose gays being able to serve in the military, but Peter can be easily added to this quote. In fact, I’ll go ahead and add his name, in italics:
It should go without saying that debates over homosexuality, the military, warriors, masculinity and the like are suffuse with all sorts of complex psychological influences. But one thing is clear: in American culture, there has long been a group of men (typified by Kristol and O’Hanlon [and LaBarbera]) who equate toughness and masculinity with fighting wars, yet who also know that they lack the courage of their own convictions, and thus confine themselves to cheerleading for wars from afar and sending others off to fight but never fighting those wars themselves (Digby wrote the seminal post on that sorry faction back in 2005). It seems that individuals plagued by that affliction are eager to avoid having it rubbed in their faces that there are large numbers of homosexual warriors who possess the courage (the “testosterone-laden tough-guyness”) which the O’Hanlons and Kristols [and LaBarberas], deep down, know they lack. Banning gay people from serving openly in the military as warriors is an excellent way of being able to deny that reality to themselves.
Oh look, you can hide your bigotry behind Torah too!
Same old, same old…9/11 happened because of same sex domestic partnerships in New York, Hurricane Katrina was caused by Southern Decadence (not “Days of Decadence,” Yehuda, sheesh!), the tsunami was caused by general unspecified decadence of some sort, and the Haiti earthquake was caused by licentious behavior such as AIDS and homosexuality. Yep, he said that! Watch the Jewish Pat Robertson as he explains it all to us:
Here’s part of the statement issued by Levin and a bunch of his other extremist friends* in the Jewish faith:
Thirteen months before 9/11, on the day New York City passed homosexual domestic partnership regulations, I joined a group of Rabbis at a City Hall prayer service, pleading with G-d not to visit disaster on the city of N.Y. We have seen the underground earthquake, tsunami, Katrina, and now Haiti. All this is in sync with a two thousand year old teaching in the Talmud that the practice of homosexuality is a spiritual cause of earthquakes. Once a disaster is unleashed, innocents are also victims just like in Chernobyl.
Riiiiight. But how did the sneaky gays cause Chernobyl? That’s what I want to know. What were the gays doing in 1986? Oh-ho-ho, I got it. That’s right about the time that Cher made her come-back! It’s right there in the word. Cher-nobyl? Mmhmm.
Anyway, watch out Iowa! You may not think of yourself as “earthquake prone,” but some mad rabbi begs to differ! And don’t come whining to me with your liberal theories about “plate tectonics” or anything like that. We all know that earthquakes are caused by Intelligent Shaking.
*A group which, might I add, is so unrepresentative of American Jews it’s ridiculous. If you’re not aware, mainstream Jews in this country (the great majority of them) are some of the most reliably liberal supporters of equal rights we have. It’s guys like that one, above, who are deviants within the faith.
Peter LaBarbera decided to get on the computer tonight to reprint a malformed little tirade from one Daniel Zanoza, “executive director” of some group called “Republicans for Fair Media.” Zanoza’s piece bemoans the fact that Bill O’Reilly ran a “Culture Warriors” segment, and none of the panelists supported keeping Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in place. Worse than that? Even Bill O’Reilly supported repeal! (See update below.) The hysterical, fearful mental state which led to Zanoza’s dismay also leads him to ask “Is Fox news tacking to the left” to “appease and attract more liberal viewers?”
Uh, Daniel, no.
Fox News is not tacking to the left. Your positions are just rapidly becoming so grotesque in the public eye that even Fox is beginning to realize how ill-informed and bigoted they are.* You refer to lifting DADT as a “social experiment,” the favored term of know-nothings like Elaine Donnelly, but the reality is that gays serve in the US Military already and have for years, and the institution hasn’t fallen apart. Likewise, gays serve openly in the militaries in the United Kingdom, Israel, and a host of other places, and if you’d done any research on the issue before hunting/pecking your ignorance into the perpetuity of the internet, you’d know that the Israeli military is one of the fiercest fighting forces in the world. EVEN WITH ALL THOSE HOMOS!
I guess we’re just a hell of a lot tougher than your tortured little minds would like to admit.
As I said above, when you’re losing Fox News, you might as well pack it in, because you’ve lost the war.
(By the way, the funniest line in Zanoza’s screed is where he talks about how shocked he was to hear this “liberal” stuff because Fox is supposed to be “Fair and Balanced,” which, in the wingnut mind, means never having to be confronted with ideas you disagree with/have no rational argument against. Wingnuts are such delicate creatures.)
*A turning point for that was likely Elaine Donnelly’s embarrassing testimony before Congress a while back, when Patrick Murphy tore her to pieces as others present in the room openly marveled at the insane things coming out of her mouth. Good times.
UPDATE: Jeremy pulled the transcript (something I should have done, but didn’t think about in my pre-coffee writing) and it seems that Daniel Zanoza’s account of the O’Reilly segment doesn’t even match reality. The two panelists indeed supported repeal, and O’Reilly played a bit of devil’s advocate against them, and from what I can see, pulled out some tired conservative tropes about the military not wanting openly gay people serving. (They tend to rely on a flawed, unscientific poll of Military Times readers, who are mostly older, and many are retired.) As Jeremy said, the exchange is pretty much what you would expect from O’Reilly. So Zanoza’s “the sky is falling!” hysteria, aside from being insane, was based on watching a television segment that simply didn’t happen.
“In his State of the Union address, President Obama asked Congress to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. I am immensely proud of, and thankful for, every American who wears the uniform of our country, especially at a time of war, and I believe it would be a mistake to repeal the policy.
“This successful policy has been in effect for over fifteen years, and it is well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels. We have the best trained, best equipped, and most professional force in the history of our country, and the men and women in uniform are performing heroically in two wars. At a time when our Armed Forces are fighting and sacrificing on the battlefield, now is not the time to abandon the policy.”
I guess bigotry in the McCain family is carried on the Y chromosome.
Wow.
