NEW LOWS

GOP Audience, Santorum Insult Gay Soldier Serving In Iraq

Stephen Hill, an openly gay soldier currently serving in Iraq, submitted the following question to last night’s Fox News/Google’s GOP debate: “Do you plan to circumvent the progress that has been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?” Several audience members booed the soldier right before Rick Santorum said, “Sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.”

Yes, Republicans booing an U.S. soldier. We have just reached a new low, America.

Santorum did not bother to thank Hill for his service nor did he admonish the jeers from the audience. Instead he continued to disrespect Hill by going straight into the sort of answer you’d expect from him:

“Yeah, I would say that any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military. And the fact that they are making it a point to include it as a provision within the military—that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege in removing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ I think tries to inject social policy into the military and the military’s job is to defend our country. We need to give the military, which is all volunteer, the ability to do so in a way that is most efficient and protective of our men and women in uniform and I believe this undermines that ability.”

Thunderous applause and cheers erupted from the audience before the dunderhead had even finished answering.

But let’s take a second to consider the overwhelming idiocy of his position.

First, he thinks our armed forces aren’t having sex with each other. Yes, they’re all celibates, Richard—all of them—because sexually frustrated soldiers fight like tigers. Second, about that group of people looking for recognition and the privilege to serve their country… they’re called Americans. And by trying to oust certain Americans from serving, Rick is trying to inject his own social policy into the military. But he’s OK with that because the National Organization of Marriage asked him to.

Megyn Kelly followed up by asking Santorum, “So what would you do with soldiers like Stephen Hill? I mean, now he’s out… So what would you do as President?”

And Santorum dribbles out this dreck:

Look, what we’re doing is playing social experimentation with our military right now and that’s tragic. I would just say that going forward we would reinstitute that policy if Rick Santorum was president, period.”

Then he immediately contradicts himself by saying:

“And as far as people who are in it, I would not throw them out because that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration. But we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past which was sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself. Whether you’re heterosexual or homosexual.

OK, so let’s play this game one more time…

So Israel, which has allowed gays in its military since 1993, has been playing around with “social experimentation” all this time? As President, Santorum might want to tell their Prime Minister that. And naturally Santorum would object to American troops serving with troops from the United Kingdom or Australia seeing as their armies are such tragic risks. No, he would rather our army were more like Iran’s and North Korea’s with absolutely no homos.

And when Dick Santorum reinstates “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” he will allow the current, openly gay soldiers to remain openly gay (because that’s only fair), but any new gay recruits—no way (because that’s only fair too). So anyone who enters the military between September 20th 2011 and January 1st 2013 can be totes gay. But anyone after that better stay closeted and butch it up. That should be easy to enforce.

Lastly, he poops out this thoughtless turd: “But we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past which was sex is not an issue.”

So Santorum would move the American military “forward” by reinstating a policy from almost 20 years ago, but he also thinks that until 3 days ago sex was not an issue in the military. Wow. We know several thousands of raped female soldiers who might disagree with him. Of course, sex wasn’t an issue to Santorum when it was just straight male soldiers raping women. But when two gay soldiers have consensual sex, that is an issue.

And what’s worse is that by being such a moron, Santorum has gotten us to actually agree with a statement from GOProud:

“Tonight, Rick Santorum disrespected our brave men and women in uniform, and he owes Stephen Hill, the gay soldier who asked him the question about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal, an immediate apology.

“That brave gay soldier is doing something Rick Santorum has never done–put his life on the line to defend our freedoms and our way of life. It is telling that Rick Santorum is so blinded by his anti-gay bigotry that he couldn’t even bring himself to thank that gay soldier for his service.

“Stephen Hill is serving our country in Iraq, fighting a war Senator Santorum says he supports. How can Senator Santorum claim to support this war if he doesn’t support the brave men and women who are fighting it?”

For the love of sweet Baby Jesus, please don’t ever stop clicking on this link.

Images via Instinct Magazine and Think Progress

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