Finally!

I need never blog about DADT again - except in a historical context.  But in the meantime, we can take a good hearty laugh at the temper tantrums being thrown by those who opposed repeal:

"We will no longer be able to bail out these other emasculated armies [i.e., our allies] because ours will now be feminized and neutered beyond repair, and there is no one left to bail us out."  Bryan Fischer, American Family Association.

"The American military [...] has now been hijacked and turned into a tool for imposing on the country a radical social agenda."  Tony Perkins, Family Research Council.

"If the lame-duck Congress succeeds in ‘gaying down’ our military this weekend, it will take a disastrous leap toward 'mainstreaming' deviant, sinful homosexual conduct – not just in the military but in larger society — thus further propelling America’s moral downward spiral."  Peter LaBarbera, Americans for Truth about Homosexuality.

"There'll be high-fives all over the liberal bastions of America. [...] But there'll be additional sacrifice."  John McCain, Douchebag.

Hahaha!  Pass the popcorn!

John McCain Is an Evil, Lying Bigot and Should Resign

Exactly.

HT: Sullivan.

And Just What Is This?

Did a staffer for Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) post "all faggots must die" in the comments section of a gay blog moments after the vote on DADT? WTFF?

Coward.

UGH.

The DADT vote just failed.

The roll 'o jackanapes:

• Susan Collins, R-Me., for voting against.
• Olympia Snowe, R-Me., for voting against.
• Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., for voting against.
• Mark Pryor, D-Ark., for voting against.
• John McCain, R.-Ariz., for outright douchebaggery and disgracing his uniform.
• General James Amos, Obama's recent pick to lead the Marines, for opposing repeal hours before the vote.
• Barack Obama, for doing fuck-all on this.

But not, it seems, Harry Reid, who also voted against it. Apparently, under Senate rules, voting with the majority allows him to reintroduce the measure at a later date. Erm, okay. Pass, for now.

Quote of the day from Alexander Nicholson of Servicemembers United:

Today's vote is a failure of leadership on the part of those who have been duly elected to serve this nation and to put the best interests of the country ahead of partisan politics," said Alexander Nicholson, director of Servicemembers United, an advocacy group that sought the law's repeal. "The Senate could learn a good lesson from those who serve in uniform and who stand to benefit from proceeding to debate on this bill -- serving this country means putting politics aside and getting the job done. It is simply inexcusable that this vote failed today.

Anger is justified. Anger is the only appropriate reaction.

Reax from pro-repeal groups here. A good, detailed accounting here - shame on Susan Collins for voting against just because Republicans wanted to offer more amendments.

More Folderol from the Family Research Council

Here's an exchange between Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis and the FRC's Tony Perkins, concerning gays in the military:

Maginnis: That's why countries like the ten largest militaries in the world, that have the ten largest militaries in the world say 'no, this isn't the thing to do.' They spin this as if Great Britain and we ought to copy them and the Dutch. Well the fact is that 80 percent of the militaries in the world don't embrace this particular view.

Perkins: Well, those that do, they're the ones that participate in parades, they don't fight wars to keep the nation and the world free. So there's a big difference.

That little dollop of vitriol got laughs and applause from the audience. Keepin' it classy, fellas. Video clip here.

HT: Sullivan.

Yuma Mayor Al Krieger Is a Flaming Bigot

Here's what he said, at a Memorial Day event:

And I cannot believe that a bunch of limp-wristed, lacey-drawed [sic] people could do what those men have done in the past.

Yeah, he's talking about gays in the military. After some flak, he said this:

I'm reluctant to compare myself to George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, but I did get some feedback, and I don't think I said anything different than what they would have said.

Well, as the idiocy of everything after that first comma shows, Krieger's reluctance - while obviously ineffectual - is very much advisable.

A few more choice gems:

There is an issue currently in the military with homosexuals serving on the battlefield and I think it's going to be detrimental to men on the battlefield to have that conflict with sexual preference. There's no place for that. There's no place for that. We're in a battle here in America. We're in a war, here in America, and we've been involved in many wars. And we need solid, strong men, not pacifists, to fight those battles. (Emphasis added.)

And:

It was men that landed on Omaha Beach and men that fought in World War One and men who traditionally and historically that did all the fighting in all the wars, women had a supporting role and I don't mean to diminish that, but those men thought [sic - get it together, KYMA] fought were a man's man. They had nerves of steel and a back bone and they knew they were fighting for a cause greater than themselves.

It's enough to drive you to despair.

Oh, and you know that George Washington guy, right? The guy who hired the Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, the Prussian officer who played a critical role in the Continental Army. Yeah, that von Steuben - the gay one.

Mayor Krieger, you colossal dipshit, go get stuffed.

Update: Think Progress has video of Krieger's speech.

Great Moments in Douchebaggery

Watch this damn video.  Jerk. (Not you, dear reader - the guy in the video.)

DADT Repeal Voted Out of Senate Armed Services Committee

Huzzah!

And this follows House approval, too, of a similar measure:

Support the Troops - Unless They're Gay

Andrew Sullivan has reax to that Family Research Council report - you know, the one that says that gay soldiers = lots more gay rape. Note, too, that the second of those reax has video of the report's author, Peter Sprigg, saying that i) gays should be exported, and that ii) "gay behavior" should be outlawed.

Maybe we should export Sprigg to Uganda.

Bullshit on Parade

First up: according to America's Survival, "gay" = "HIV":

Next: the Family Research Council contends that repeal of DADT will mean more gay rape.

Oh, what a cavalcade of whimsy!

By the way, in my browser, an error message appears right below the link to the FRC's report in the above story. Couldn't have said it better myself!

Update: It appears the America's Survival video has been removed from YouTube. The organization claims it was due to copyright and other complaints from liberal groups. I take this with a grain of salt, but if it is true, then it's a shame: the video was so outrageously offensive that it did more good for those who seek the repeal of DADT than it did for its own creators. Too bad.

"Over the Top"

Nebraska's Senator Ben Nelson, a Democrat, has hitherto been a fence-sitter on repeal of DADT - more's the pity, as he sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Fence-sitter no longer, he has now said that he will back repeal. This is a crucial 15th vote for repeal, enough to get it out of committee. Said Nelson:

I don’t believe that most Nebraskans want to continue a policy that not only encourages but requires people to be deceptive and to lie. The "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy does just that[....] It also encourages suspicion and senior officers to look the other way. In a military which values honesty and integrity, this policy encourages deceit.

Onward and upward!

The Tipping Point Was Obama's Election

A new Gallup poll says that support for gay marriage as morally acceptable has increased from 40% in 2001 to 52% in 2010, while opposition fell from 53% to 43% over the same period. This is the first time that support for gay marriage as morally acceptable has crossed the 50% mark. Interestingly, the poll used the term "homosexual relations" rather than "gay/lesbian marriages" - and reports have suggested that the term "homosexual" prompts more opposition in polls to issues of gay rights than do the terms "gay" or "lesbian."

The tipping point came in late 2008. While there certainly was a short-lived era of good feeling right about the election, lots of Americans have since then lurched into a grotesque, reactionary posture (teabaggers, I'm looking at you). Yet the support for the morality of gay marriage has continued to grow.

Here's a thought: the two figures seem to be connected. The percentage of those who see gay marriage as morally acceptable is rising, and the percentage of those who see gay marriage as morally unacceptable is declining. These two trends would not necessarily be correlative; the percentage of people who are undecided or have no opinion is also a factor. (It was 7% in 2001, 5% in 2010.) But it seems that a rise of one percent in the "morally acceptable" camp translates directly into a decrease of one percent in the "morally unacceptable" camp.

What does this mean? Well, I think it means that Americans are actually changing their minds about gay marriage. Those who used to believe that gay marriage is morally unacceptable (or who had no opinion on the matter) are, today, more likely to hold an affirmative view that gay marriage is moral. Another reason to think this: one of the largest increases in support for gay marriage came from Catholics, who are, I think, more likely than the average population to have opposed gay marriage back in 2001. Ultimately, this paints a picture of a very definite shift in the thinking of Americans - this is not a fluid situation but a decisive, accelerated, and clear reversal of a previous trend. The people of this country are in the process of choosing to support gay marriage. They are scrapping old views and changing their minds.

While legal challenges can and should always be pursued, the growing popular support for gay marriage means that legislative solutions, at the state and federal levels, become more feasible. Legislative solutions are my preferred way of redressing the denial of marriage and other rights to gays - they are simply more democratic and they only require persuading your fellow citizens with the rightness of your case. Legal battles, however, have had a mixed rate of success, and adverse rulings could (and have) set back other legal challenges as well. Simply put, a legal battle is more of an uphill affair. And in any event, I'd like to think I live in a community that supports the rightness of that right, and I'd have a better sense of that if the right to marriage were extended by elected representatives rather than unelected judges.

Update: Meanwhile, in a poll by CNN/Opinion Research, 78% of Americans support repealing DADT. No tipping point there - that's virtually unchanged from 2007.

A Push, Finally?

Pelosi states that DADT should be history by Christmas. It's about time the Dems expended some effort to end this inanity. Words may for once be followed by action, as Senate and House committees prepare to vote on repeal measures this week.

Prediction: the final vote will come before Christmas, but after the November elections. ASAP is better, but this I could deal with.