After seeing the Washington Post lend space to Tony Perkins to spread blatant lies and fearmongering in a piece ostensibly about bullied LGBT kids, and then letting columnist Richard Cohen argue that hate crime legislation is nearly as bad as hate crimes themselves, it’s amusing to see the Post would lend space to somebody attack another newspaper for doing the same thing.
The Post handed Adam Serwer, of The American Prospect, a byline on its Plum Line blog to attack the right-y Washington Times and its incomprehensible editorial “Queer eye for the G.I.,” a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell piece arguing “the Pentagon’s collaboration with the leftist agenda” to repeal the law is a “destructive force.”
Leftists are only interested in political points and symbolism here. Providing defense to the nation in the most effective way possible is the furthest thing from their mind. Treating military recruitment primarily as a diversity issue opens up a closet full of absurdities. On what basis, then, would the military discriminate against the elderly? Why can’t grandpa become a paratrooper? Should the military not reject someone merely because he is handicapped? Why not a wheelchair-bound infantryman?
It’s the same argument we wrote about earlier with Massachusetts House candidate Sean Bielat, who compares banning gays the equivalent of banning anyone under 5-foot-2.
Responds Serwer:
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
The idea that homosexuality is akin to a physical disability is self-evidently absurd — the military doesn’t prevent gays and lesbians from serving, just serving openly. The question of whether or not gays and lesbians are physically capable of doing so isn’t even at issue. […] Look, I could point you to the empirical evidence showing DADT discharges slowing after 2001 when the military stopping being able to take recruits for granted. I could point out that countries like Israel allow gay troops to serve openly. I could mention the $95 million the Government Accountability Office estimated it would have cost to replace already discharged servicemembers back in 2005. I could point out the distinction between “task cohesion” and “social cohesion,” adding that while the latter is affected by allowing openly gay and lesbian servicemembers, the former is not and it is the only factor that actually influences unit effectiveness. I could even go the public opinion route, and cite the fact that most Americans want the policy repealed, meaning that it’s hard to characterize this as the pet project of a few LGBT rights activists. Those opposed to allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly comprise shrinking homophobic fringe whose disproportionate influence is a result of the anti-majoritarian structure of the U.S. Senate. But that would all be useless. Because Judge Virginia Phillips already made most of those points in her ruling overturning the policy, and the Times editorial board didn’t address any of them. That’s because The Washington Times isn’t making an empirical or rational argument, it’s just counting on the reader being as frightened and hateful as they are. There’s no response to that, other than disgust.
Except those are words printed in the very same newspaper that let FRC hate leader Tony Perkins deliver this drivel:
The most important thing that Christians can offer to homosexuals is hope–hope that their sins, just like the sins of anyone else, can be forgiven and their lives transformed by the power of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ command to love our neighbor clearly embraces the homosexual as well. But love does not require affirming every behavior in which an individual engages. For a parent to encourage a child to indulge their every desire would not be love, but its very opposite. The same is true of self-destructive behaviors in which adults may engage–whether it is the excessive use of alcohol, drugs, reckless driving, or heterosexual activity outside of marriage.
To be fair, the Times‘ item was an editorial (thus representing the views of the paper) while the Post‘s article was a guest op-ed from a third party (and thus not representative of the paper’s views). But I guess this is what counts as representing both sites?
Dennis
This headline makes no sense with the posts contents. None. Zero. Nil. Why even bring up the Post in an article about the Times?
Brutus
Perkins is misguided and we need to convince him, or at least the more open-minded of his followers, that homosexuality is not self-destructive. (Neither is “heterosexual activity outside of marriage,” for the record. Not using a condom while doing any of these things, however, is.) There are a lot of really good studies coming out showing that kids raised by gay parents are just fine, that gay couples are doing fine, and that there’s nothing to be feared. (Unlike drug and alcohol abuse.)
But why can’t you see that he has good intentions? He’s not arguing for our chemical castration or execution. He genuinely wants to help us. It’s just that the form of help he thinks is productive, well, isn’t. Instead of making faces at him and dumping on anything he says, we might try working on the part of him that still sees us as human beings with human dignity.