Andrew Sullivan – It’s not the 90s anymore
Today, Sully has a nice post laying on layers and layers of snark talking about Bill Clinton’s shameful triangulation vis a vis gay rights.
A reader comments:
A wonderful speech, but hard to ignore the “hypocrite” label when contrasting those words with the advice Clinton gave to Kerry in 2004 to focus on the “one tenth of one percent” by demonizing gays and supporting a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Or the fact that he signed DOMA into law. Or Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Plenty can talk the talk (and Clinton is a master), but I’d like to see the walk.
Picky, picky. My reader needs to be sent to HRC re-education camp, in order to erase something called memory of the 1990s.
Now, I understand that Sullivan, unlike me, was largely conscious of political issues during the 90s, but he can’t seem to get his head around that the Democrats have moved to the left on gay issues. Sure,Human Rights Campaign might be too enthralled with the other HRC and it didn’t come around to marriage equality soon enough, but on one of the defining gay issues, DADT, the Democrats have come around:
In back-to-back debates in New Hampshire this week, every Democratic candidate raised his or her hand in support of repealing that policy, while not a single Republican embraced the idea. Democrats argued with striking unanimity that it was time to end the uneasy compromise that President Bill Clinton reached in 1993, after his attempt to lift the ban on gay men and lesbians in the military provoked one of the most wrenching fights of his young administration.
And what did the Republicans do when faced with the same question? I’ll let Sully take it himself:
And, of course, as the question showed, the policy is throwing out critical servicemembers in a time of war. McCain and Giuliani: they know better. The lack of any real argument in defense of the Republican candidates’ position combined with the blanket refusal to revisit it is a sign of only one thing: contempt for the many servicemembers who are gay. The truth is: Giuliani and McCain do not support the troops. They want to persecute and stigmatize a minority of them. These old men are out of date and out of touch. Like the party they represent
Combine with near-universal Democratic support for ending DADT, expanding ENDA to cover gays, Edwards supporting immigration equality (which Sullivan posts about regularly and passionatley) and civil unions (which aren’t perfect, but are almost surely as stepping stone, eventually, for gay marriage), and it becomes clear that any voter who values LGBT equality and protections should vote for Democrats. Sullivan knows this, he knows that a large part of the GOP is built around bigotry towards gays, but he enjoys his heterodoxy in the gay community so much, he’s still high off the 90s, where he was the brave “gay conservative” who called the Clintons out on their triangulating bullshit. Well, Andrew, it isn’t the 90s anymore, it’s 2007, and the Democrats are across the board better on LGBT issues, while the Republicans, if possible, have gotten worse. Even Hilary doesn’t support 90s LGBT triangulation anymore, so maybe you should stop listening to Gin Blossoms, sell your Pets.com stock, stop watching Frasier reruns and get on board with the party that doesn’t hate you for who you are.
But, a little 90s nostalgia didn’t kill anyone, so here’s my own personal contribution.
Gays in the military
It’s time everyone uses their god given ability to reason when discussing matters such as gays being in the military. One need only look at the statistics of the many many countries that have allowed gays in the military for a long period of time. What was their experience? The statistics do not bear out the fears of the damage it may do to morale of the soldiers.
Gays have been in the U.S. military ever since it’s inception and there has never been any damage done to the morale thus far that is measurable. The issue is, if the policy were to change concerning gays being allowed to be openly homosexual as the other soldiers are allowed to be openly heterosexual, that this knowledge would somehow negatively affect the strength of our military. Does anyone truly believe that while in a battle situation soldiers would be “hitting on” or making passes at other soldiers? I don’t know about other people’s sexual triggers that may turn them on, but living in a constant state of fear in a battle situation would not be conducive for me personally to become sexually aroused. There are in fact some stats concerning gays that have served in the military that actually suggest that they are more conscientious than their heterosexual counterparts in job performance.
We don’t have to look back very far in our military history when the issue of woman being allowed to fight along side men in combat may be distracting. There was an issue of blacks as well destroying morale of the white heterosexual soldiers. Those fears have not born out but in fact women and blacks have instead proven to be excellent soldiers and have made great contributions to the military as gays have. However the contributions that gays have made were done unfortunately in a closeted environment.
The military is stunningly slow in making changes of policy even though the statistics are very clear from other countries that do allow gays to enlist in the military. It is very clear that gays have done no harm to the morale of the heterosexual soldiers. This whole disgusting argument about destroying or compromising the morale of the soldiers is so blatantly biased. What the policy now in place very clearly and openly suggests that heterosexual men have more value and therefore we do not want to make the heterosexual men uncomfortable.
What about the comfort of the gay men and woman that put their lives at risk for the sake of our country? Don’t they matter? Aren’t their contributions and valor as significant as their heterosexual counterparts? I think so. How long will it take and how many more gay soldiers have to die for our country before given the full rights and recognition they deserve?
aaron jason silver
June 8, 2007 at 3:36 pm