Rants
Minority Rights Are Not Predicated on the Readiness of the Majority
Here in the US there has been some good news on the gay rights front recently: the House of Representatives voted to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy under which openly gay service members are discharged and which has been in place for the better part of two decades. Now it’s going to the Senate, where apparently things could get tough, but if all goes well we may see real policy change within the next year or so. Here is a Houston Chronicle article about it.
It should not come as a surprise that almost across the board, Republicans oppose this policy change. From the article:
Republicans, who voted overwhelmingly against it, cited statements by some military leaders that they need more time to study how a change in the law could affect the lives and readiness of service members.
Here’s what I haven’t heard anyone say in response to this: why do we care what the brass thinks about the “readiness” of service members to have out gays serving with them? How does that take precedence over eliminating blatant discrimination in military policy? Some things are more important than appeasing some homophobic bigots in the military.
The case against repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” is usually put this way (to quote John McCain):
I think it’s really going to be very harmful to the morale and effectiveness of our military.
The interesting part is that this argument is not new. As is pointed out by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer in the article, the objection about “morale” is the same that was made by the people who opposed racial integration in the military 60 years ago. This was a cowardly and disingenuous argument then, and it remains so today.
In Defense of Sarah Palin (Sort of)
For the past six months or so, the presidential election hasn’t ceased to provide me with story after story that I find deeply disturbing or upsetting. I’ve been particularly struck by the absolute about-face McCain has made from his independent stances in the past. With his acquisition of Sarah Palin as a running-mate, I’ve become certain that the awful, crippled monstrosity that is the US election system has done the unimaginable and provided us with a ticket even more harmful to our nation then the drooling sack of ineptitude currently occupying the White House. I’ve thought of at least a dozen blog posts that I haven’t had the time to write concerning this dismal state of affairs in the last few weeks alone.