Reasonable person Tony Perkins, whose Focus on the Family hatemongering has found a home at Tucker Carlon’s The Daily Caller, raises reasonable fears: If we repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and lose all those homophobic straight soldiers, Obama is going to have to bring back the draft! Lord.
Let the ridiculous thinking go forth!
Barack Obama is opposed to the draft as a matter of principle, to be sure. So are most politicians in both parties. But the president’s drive to repeal the ban on open homosexuality in the military could have this unintended consequence: It could bring back the draft.
The deeply flawed “survey” of current members of our all-volunteer military should not lull policymakers into a false sense of security. Or, in this instance, a false sense of national security. The survey assumes Congress will roll over for the administration. It assumes homosexuals will be serving openly in the services and asks benign questions of respondents about how they intend to deal with it.
The survey presumes that homosexuality is like skin color. Well, it’s not. You can easily have a neighbor in military housing of a different race. That presents no problem for your military family. But if the neighbors are a same-sex couple, then your family is affected in a very serious way. You must explain to your children that their beliefs and deeply-held values about marriage, about questions of religious faith, must be suppressed.
[…] Opposition voices will be stifled, as mine was when I was disinvited as a speaker for an Air Force prayer luncheon. I had no intention of speaking about that issue. No matter. I was on record as one who supports the current law of the United States! All of these undesirable outcomes will cause a sharp reduction in recruitment. We have a top general and admiral who now say, outrageously: If you don’t like it, “get out!” They are asking for an exodus.
Ah yes, the typical “it’s not homophobia, it’s national security” argument. That it comes from a Marines Corps veteran isn’t just sad, isn’t an insult to the brave men and women who want to tell Perkins to where he can shove his bayonet.
ChicagoJimmy
What? Really? How about just telling your kids that different people are different and that’s okay?
ewe
Most straight people hae never heard of this putz. And thankfully even Anderson Cooper stopped having this crazy nut on primetime.
B
No. 1 · ChicagoJimmy wrote, “What? Really? How about just telling your kids that different people are different and that’s okay?”
… or just saying nothing. The kiddies probably wouldn’t even notice if the parents didn’t make a big deal about it.
rainfish2000
Tony Pervertkins says: “But if the neighbors are a same-sex couple, then your family is affected in a very serious way. You must explain to your children that their beliefs and deeply-held values about marriage, about questions of religious faith, must be suppressed.”
Hmmm…To put it another way, ol’ Tony probably would have said it differently a few decades ago:
“But if the neighbors are an interracial couple, then your white supremacist family is affected in a very serious way. You must explain to your KKK children that their racist’s beliefs and deeply-held racist’s values about the sanctity of racially pure marriages, about questions of hate-based religious faith, must be suppressed (like not being able to throw bricks at their barracks or burning a cross on their lawn).”
———————-
After all, the extremely Pro-slavery Judeo/Christian Bible states very clearly.
Ephesians 6: “With a cheerful heart, a slave shall obey his master.”
…oh, and don’t forget the “mixing of the races” part, too.
Sheesh…will these trolls never quit!
Cam
Funny, I was just thinking that if they had already repealed it they WOULDN’T have lost the 15,000 soldiers they’ve kicked out under it.
Ethan
One of the greatest absurdities of this drama is that most of our allies have ALREADY BEEN THROUGH IT, right down to the fearmongering about mass walkouts and recruitment collapses that utterly failed to materialize. Either Perkins is too ignorant to learn recent history, or he’s banking on his audience being that ignorant (and here he’s presumably correct in some cases), or he believes that “American exceptionalism” means that our soldiers are the only ones unprofessional enough to be unable to handle the presence of openly gay coworkers. I’ve given up trying to figure out which: in the end, any one of the three would disqualify Perkins as a credible commentator. His greatest hope should be to forgotten by history, and unlike John McCain, he seems to be well on his way.
Jeffree
Mass exodus? No way, Tony. The servicemembers returning for the last few years have been having a tough go at finding civilian jobs, and current members know that. They’re already serving side by side with GLB folks, so repeal won’t make a big splash anyway.
reason
Bringing the draft back would actually be an excellent thing. I am sure W weapons of mass destruction line would have been different if we threw his daughters into the battle. It is crazy that the volunteer soldiers are the only ones carrying the burden, why the super-rich and their families get large tax cuts. Then they borrow the war money to kick the cost down the road.
Soupy
I always found it ironic that it was 3 men who sought deferments from service (Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld) who were so cavalier about sending troops off to Iraq.
Chuck
No, most people don’t obsess about gay people the way he does.
Chris
Editors, please verify your stories before going to print! Tony Perkins isn’t from Focus on the Family, he’s from the Family Research Council.
The only reason people like Tony Perkins is so vocal against DADT is the same reason Focus on the Family and other groups (NOM, et. al.) focus on only gay issues. If GLBT persons gain full equality, these buffoons will be out of a job. They have no other skill or purpose than to push hate and division. With no boogie-man, they will become irrelevant.
jason
Tony “Diarrhea” Perkins is a sad sack of a lemon-twisted face with fine features that resemble a male Gladys Kravetz and big ears for picking up conversations behind toilet stalls.
As for his notion about the draft, it’s full of crap. I’m tempted to put forward a coherent paragraph disproving it but convincing Tony would be like pushing diarrhea up a hill.
Daez
Perhaps if you raise your children to love people of all different varieties instead of being closed minded idiotic bigots then you have no need to explain anything to them.
If my partner’s 15 year old son has no problem with his gay dad (who is still married to his mother by the way) dating a dude some 20+ years younger than him, then I’m pretty sure children will do just fine accepting the gay couple next door.
Daez
@reason: In a great display of sexual “equality,” women are not required to register for the selective service while men are. So, in short, you can’t draft women only men. I’m surprised the feminist movement isn’t up in arms about this (OH WAIT!).
customartist
Act Now! Send 3 emails:
Email The Whitehouse
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Email Congress:
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
Email Senate:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
*IMPORTANT* Be polite and to the point.
Coxhere
Tonia Perkins has penis breath & is a self-loathing homosexual. These facts should tell us why he obsesses about Gay issues: We are her family members.