GOP Senator Lindsey Graham keeps doing reserve duty in Iraq, despite longtime unconfirmed speculation that his sexual orientation might preclude such duty under the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. Why does the military not having a problem with a man who, to me at least, certainly talks like a flaming homosexual risking the unit cohesion of our troops? Because, face it, if I think Lindsey Graham sounds like a flaming gay, then some of our soldiers in Iraq probably do too. And in order to ruin unit cohesion, according to the Republicans who support DADT, all you need is for people to think that you're gay and thus not want to shower with you, bunk with you, etc. So why haven't they investigated Lindsey Graham? Or are some pink elephants more equal than others?
[Note from AJ: This post tickled my brain when I read it, like a memory was trying to emerge from long ago. And then it came to me, and I realized that there's actually a theme song for this subject! Ahh, Dumbo, reminding us just how scary pink elephants can be. Enjoy:]
Rudy and Romney are campaigning in New Hampshire today. Lately, there's been some controversy surrounding their description of public service. Romney stepped in it when he said his sons were serving the country by campaigning for him. Rudy got in trouble when he said he was basically a 9/11 rescue worker, so all those emergency responders who raced to the World Trade Center minutes after it collapsed, and now have the September 11 equivalent of Black Lung Disease, should just shut up, per Rudy. Both have now tried to spin their way out.
If Rudy and Romney want to meet some true American heroes, people who truly want to serve their country, they should stop by the Human Rights Campaign's Legacy of Service Tour, which is also in New Hampshire today. The tour is part of the campaign to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and is comprised of several vets who have left the military because of the bigoted, dangerous policy.
Both Rudy and Romney want to keep DADT. Funny thing is that both of them used to be supporters of gay rights. Big supporters of gay rights (some of us think they still are, but they're just flip-flopping to curry favor with the far-right that now controls the Republican party). Rudy used to dress in drag and lived for a while with a gay male couple. Romney used to brag that he was more pro-gay than Ted Kennedy. Then both men decided to run for president as Republicans and poof! - or should I say pooftah - both men suddenly found God, and he was a Southern Baptist.
Anyway, back to the tour. Unlike any of Romney's sons - you know, the ones who are making as much a sacrifice as our troops in Iraq by traveling around in a bus campaigning for dad - HRC's Eric Alva went to Iraq. He was the first American injured in the war. He's in New Hampshire today and has some questions for Rudy and Romney:
I call on Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney to justify their support for ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ when our nation is at war. Please explain to the 60,000 gay and lesbian troops on active duty why you seek to dishonor their service. For these candidates running to be the next commander in chief to dishonor the service of men and women standing on the streets of Baghdad and serving around the globe is shameful, and it jeopardizes national security. How can you expect to be the next president of the United States, to represent all the people of our country, and support this discriminatory policy that denies people the right to be who they are and serve openly in the armed forces?
Rudy and Romney won't answer Eric Alva or any of the other soldiers on the Legacy of Service tour. Eric and the other soldiers simply want to serve their country, but Romney, Giuliani and the other Republicans say no because it's what the far-right of the Republican part wants to hear. Rudy and Romney don't care if we have a shortage of troops. They don't care if we have a shortage of Arabic linguists. They don't care if the next 9/11 happens because we haven't translated crucial intelligence that is just sitting on some desk in Washington waiting to be examined. Rudy and Romney are now anti-gay - nudge nudge wink wink - so they support Don't Ask Don't Tell, to hell with what's best for America and our national security.
“Now that we are seeing some progress on the ground in Iraq, the Democrats don’t want to believe it,” said Representative David Dreier, Republican of California. “Democrats should stop fretting and simply focus on supporting, rather than undermining, the strategy finally yielding results.”
That sounds great, Congressman Dreier, so why don't you just enlist? Oh, that's right.
I got a chance to interview Antonio this morning at the Take Back America conference here in DC. He was appearing at a press conference launching a new video short by Robert Greenwald about the military's gan ban having fired dozens of Arabic-speaking linguists because they're gay. Antonio wasn't a linguist, but he was in charge of finding and destroying IEDs in Iraq - another crucial job. He left after becoming fed up with the anti-gay policy. Below is my interview with him (I mistakenly captioned him as "Anthony," sorry).
I've pretty much stopped promoting Comedy Central since they stopped believing in the Fair Use doctrine. Comedy Central has probably been the nastiest of the TV networks in terms of going after anyone who posts any video of any of their shows, regardless of how short the video and regardless of whether reposting the video is totally legal under the Fair Use doctrine. And no, it's not their right to go after people who are reposting snippets that are totally legal under Fair Use. Not to mention, the blogs, and our readers, have done Comedy Central an incredible service over the past several years - I only started watching Jon Stewart after seeing his sketches posted on the blogs - Comedy Central responded to our charity the way every greedy corporation does, with a heavy-handed fist. So yeah, I have a problem promoting a network that's actually kind of nasty. Having said that, I'm posting this anyway since the issue is so important. Don't hold your breath for it to happen again any time soon.
CBS reports that GOP Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) served as active duty military recently in Iraq. This raises a very serious question of national security.
I'm sorry, but I'm not comfortable having a US Senator serve active duty in Iraq as a "colonel" when there has been persistent chatter about his sexual orientation and whether it conforms to the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. The Republicans, and Senator Graham, can't have it both ways. Did the Pentagon investigate the rumors about Senator Graham's orientation prior to choosing to have him serve active duty? Doubtful. But the rumors are out there, and the Senator's very presence has been known to fuel such rumors, so it is not out of the realm of the possible that others with whom he served had the same questions. And once they have those questions, per Don't Ask Don't Tell, there is a threat to unit cohesion. So why did the Pentagon risk unit cohesion in this case?
I'm serious. They can't have it both ways. Either there is a problem with gays, or people who are suspected to be gay, serving in the military or there isn't. But Senator Graham, the Pentagon, and every other supporter of the gay ban can't talk about how the presence of someone known (or thought) to be gay would destroy unit cohesion, but at the same time let a senator serve who may not meet the criteria of the ban itself.
Yes, it's not polite to discuss such things. But we do discuss them, we are forced to discuss them, under the very bigoted and not-polite policy that Senator Graham embraces.
We're at war, we don't have enough men and women in uniform, we definitely can't keep up with translating all the terrorist chatter, so we're kicking out the very people who can translate them. Did you know that we intercepted a key conversation in Arabic the day before September 11 saying that the attack was imminent? We didn't get it translated in time. It's a very simple calculation. What matters more to you - keeping gays out of the military or stopping the next September 11?
The lack of qualified translators has been a pressing issue for some time — the Army had filled only half its authorized positions for Arabic translators in 2001. Cables went untranslated on Sept. 10 that might have prevented the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Today, the American Embassy in Baghdad has nearly 1,000 personnel, but only a handful of fluent Arabic speakers.
I was an Arabic translator. After joining the Navy in 2003, I attended the Defense Language Institute, graduated in the top 10 percent of my class and then spent two years giving our troops the critical translation services they desperately needed. I was ready to serve in Iraq.
But I never got to. In March, I was ousted from the Navy under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which mandates dismissal if a service member is found to be gay....
Consider: more than 58 Arabic linguists have been kicked out since “don’t ask, don’t tell” was instituted. How much valuable intelligence could those men and women be providing today to troops in harm’s way?
In addition to those translators, 11,000 other service members have been ousted since the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was passed by Congress in 1993. Many held critical jobs in intelligence, medicine and counterterrorism....
In response to difficult recruiting prospects, the Army has already taken a number of steps, lengthening soldiers’ deployments to 15 months from 12, enlisting felons and extending the age limit to 42. Why then won’t Congress pass a bill like the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell”? The bipartisan bill, by some analysts’ estimates, could add more than 41,000 soldiers — all gay, of course.
As you know, the GOP presidential candidates discussed the military's anti-gay policy last night - they kick out the gays. All the Republicans support keeping the ban, and many of them made it clear last night that they don't even understand what the current policy is. (All the Democratic presidential candidates favor lifting the ban.) Well, concurrent with that, there's increased chatter about the need to reconsider lifting the ban now that Bush has broken the Army, and at the same time, now that we still don't have enough Arabic-speaking men and women in our military at the same time that Bush continues to kick out the ones we have, risking another September 11 slipping through our fingers.
Here are some updates.
Antonio Agnone, a former officer in the US Marine Corps who served in Iraq - Antonio's job was finding and destroying IEDs, those roadside bombs that have been killing our troops because the military brass didn't want to spend the money on IED proof vehicles (true story) - does a video response to the GOP presidential candidates who dissed him and tens of thousands of other gay troops last night. Per HRC, Antonio is also announcing a new tour of duty?
Agnone will join other veterans on June 12 in Des Moines, Iowa to kick off the Human Rights Campaign’s national “A Legacy of Service” tour to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The tour will also feature former Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, the first American servicemember wounded in Iraq, and many other American heroes standing united and speaking out for the repeal of this discriminatory policy that continues to harm our nation’s security.
Sure, we won't be able to stop the next September 11 from killing perhaps tens of thousands of people because we don't have enough linguists to translate the terrorist chatter, but at least they stopped the gay linguists. And they wonder why we're losing in Iraq? Because we have complete bozos running our military. This is criminal.
The Brits have openly gay troops. And McCain said that openly gay troops pose "an intolerable risk" to our troops. So does he still feel that way about America's number one ally?
Putting aside the incredibly homophobic photo accompanying this article in the New York Times (more on that later), this news will likely not sit well with America's Taliban. More from the NYT (via Signorile), quoting a British Defense Ministry official:
“There are some sensitivities over the timing of this. We have had communications from our counterparts in the United States, and they have asked us questions about how we’ve handled it and how it’s gone on the ground. There does seem to be some debate going on over how long the current policy will be sustainable.”
Now back to the Times' ill-advised choice of a photo of some drag queens to illustrate how "normal" British gay soldiers are.
This was something the American press did like clockwork in the 1990s and before. If they covered a gay event or gay issue, they simply had to accompany the article with a flamboyant photo of a drag queen. I love a good drag queen, and the photo in the Times is adorable. But I like that photo because I'm gay (and/or gay-friendly). I wonder how many straight people who find themselves in the middle on gay issues, or even those slightly (or majorly) predisposed against us (especially on the gay-ban), will have their subtle prejudices reinforced by a photo that pretty much makes gay people look like effete fools. Because, you know, nudge nudge wink wink, the women are butch and everything, so maybe they're okay in the military, but the guys are all men who just yearn to put up on women's make-up and wigs - hardly the manly men you'd want fighting the terrorists, let alone sleeping in the cot next to you. That's the stereotype, and that's why there was such an outcry against the previous media bias about publishing such photos every time a gay issue arose. The media got over their bias a long time ago. And now, it seems, we've had a relapse.
Gay troops should be able to serve in the U.S. military without hiding their sexual identity, Sen. Hillary Clinton said here Sunday.
Clinton said it's time to drop the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which began when her husband, Bill Clinton, was president. The policy says that gays may serve in the military if they keep their homosexuality secret but that they can be tossed out if they don't.
"Right now, we are discharging soldiers - at a time when we don't have enough people to do the missions we need around the world - because they're gay. Not because they've done anything, but just because they're gay," she said.
US Marine Eric Alva, the first US service member injured in the Iraq war, was interviewed by CNN's Paula Zahn about General Pace's comments about homosexuality being immoral. Bloggernista has more, including the video.
As Gen. Pace considers the uproar over his remarks on morality, he might reflect on Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Fidelis Alva, who like his father and grandfather chose to serve in the military. When he enlisted 17 years ago, he lied about his sexual orientation. Sgt. Alva was the first American wounded in the Iraq war, when he stepped on a land mine. President Bush presented him with the Purple Heart. His moral fitness for duty was unquestioned. What's immoral is that Sgt. Alva -- and thousands of other brave members of the armed forces -- had to lie or be silent for the right, the risk and the honor of serving his country.
Last fall, Staff Sgt. Alva decided he wanted to come out and make a difference on the military ban issue. He contacted the Human Rights Campaign, now works for them on this issue, and HRC has been coordinating all of his media and his lobbying efforts. The reason you are hearing about Alva in the Washington Post today - and have heard about him all over the news the past few weeks - is because of his own courage, clearly, but also because of the behind the scenes work of the Human Rights Campaign in making Alva a household name. Not too shabby at all.
I hear a slew of editorials are coming out tomorrow, slamming the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff for his bigoted, homophobic comments today about gay and lesbian soldiers. It didn't help that the not-very-Christian bigots of the religious right are now sending out action alerts urging their members to call the White House and say that General Pace is right, gay soldiers really are immoral. Seems the far-right wacko wing of the Republican party still didn't get the message - you're toxic and nobody likes you anymore. Call it the "Mary Cheney" effect. Now that Mary is preggers and due any day now, I don't see this White House doing a lot to publicly attack the vice president's lesbian daughter.
Wow. Good for Warner. Too bad he's the last of a dying breed of Republicans who aren't preoccupied with who they should next hate. From ABC News:
In an rare rebuke of the nation's top military officer, Secretary of Defense Sen. John Warner, R-Va., says he strongly disagrees with Gen. Peter Pace's views that homosexuality is "immoral."
"I respectfully, but strongly disagree with the chairman's view that homosexuality is immoral," Warner said in a statement released by his office.
Warner was reacting to Pace's unusual defense of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military. Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune that he supports the policy because he believes homosexuality is "immoral" and that the military "should not condone immoral acts."
Too bad Pastor Pace, the head of our military, doesn't even know why the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy was adopted in the first place:
Military experts, however, say morality was never the basis of the policy, which says gays may serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientations private and don't engage in homosexual activity.
"Morality was never the basis of the policy," said retired Gen. Jack Keane. "It was about unit cohesion."
UPDATE: Speaking of "immoral," gay porn star man-whore Matt Sanchez reportedly said today that the Marines have told him privately that he's not going to get kicked out the military for being a, well, gay porn star man-whore. Nice priorities there, general. I guess the gay translaters you fired would have been okay had they done porn and hustling on the side? More from Joe.My.God.
No, I'd say "immoral" is letting our own injured and maimed soldiers sleep in their own urine when you all knew about it and didn't give a damn. Immoral is lying to the American people in order to get us into a war. Immoral is sending hundreds of thousands of US soldiers into battle without the proper armor. Immoral is risking the lives of our soldiers by still not having a plan for victory or exit.
Maybe if General Pace spent as much time worrying about Iraq as he does my sexual orientation we wouldn't be getting our asses kicked by a bunch of two-bit thugs with homemade bombs. More from the Chicago Trib.
Which is odd, since gay conservatives keep telling us that McCain's not that bad. What exactly is bad, then, since they tell us that Romney isn't that bad either, and Romney is bad on everything? More from ThinkProgress.
They need to see if Dont Ask Dont Tell covers sodomy, and "telling" I presume, BEFORE you enlisted. You know they're gonna kick him out. There is no way a gay-porn star male prostitute is going to be permitted to remain in the Marines, regardless of his claims that he's not gay. As I mentioned before, the irony here is that Matt Sanchez's friends on the right, who gave him an award for his service, want him kicked out of the Marines, while the folks on the left, who he claims hate him, are the ones fighting for his right to serve. Think about that one, Matt, the next time you do interviews talking about how much the Party of "Faggot" embraces you. More from Joe.My.God.
Quite possibly the best press release ever. From the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force:
The real eleven inches of pure hypocrisy
WASHINGTON, March 8 — U.S. Marine reservist Matt Sanchez was given an Academic Freedom Award at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, where Ann Coulter hurled her “faggot” slur against Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. Sanchez, who attends Columbia University, also recently appeared on conservative talk shows where he criticized “radical anti-military students” he met during campus recruiting. Reports have since surfaced that Sanchez has allegedly worked as a gay porn star, prompting silence from his (now former) right-wing cheerleaders and charges of hypocrisy lobbed at Sanchez by gay bloggers.
Statement by Matt Foreman, Executive Director National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
“While it may be delicious to watch our opponents twist and squirm after honoring and embracing a larger-than-life gay porn star, I don’t see any hypocrisy in U.S. Marine reservist Matt Sanchez’s actions. As is his right, he spoke out against what he believed was bad treatment by Columbia’s ‘radical anti-military students’ (Sanchez’s words). Right-wing pundits and organizations pounced on the handsome Latino Marine and showered him with praise and media exposure. Now, they’re scrambling for cover.
“Porn — gay or straight — has no ideology. Porn stars and porn consumers are Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, atheists and evangelicals. There’s no inherent contradiction between Matt Sanchez being pro-military and being part of the ‘adult film’ industry. The real hypocrisy expresses itself in two different and important ways. First, the failed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law requires Matt Sanchez and thousands of other loyal Americans to hide their sexual orientation to serve their country in the military. Second, Ann Coulter and her ilk lift a man to hero and spokesperson status until — gasp! — he is found out to be a ‘faggot’ (Coulter’s word).
“The important 11 inches in this story? That is the approximate distance between berths on U.S. naval submarines, so defamatorily measured in front of TV cameras by then-Sen. Sam Nunn in 1993, who immorally intimated that openly gay service members could not be permitted to bunk next to straight service members. From that shameful episode, Nunn led Congress to adopt the ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell’ law, which should now be repealed. Let’s be done with officially enforced closets.”
