Oh, Joe
Wilson, shut up.
I'm
sorry. That was childish. Then again, that's apparently the level of discourse
Wilson operates on. He is, after all, the guy who shouted, "You lie!"
during the president's address to Congress two years ago and became an asshole
folk hero to anti-Obama nuts everywhere.
And now
he's whining and stomping his feet over the repeal of the anti-gay military
policy "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Letting gay people serve in the
military without having to lie about and hide who they are is too much for
folks like Wilson and his fellow House Republicans who are supporting a bill to
stop the repeal.
The
House Arms Services personnel subcommittee held a hearing about repealing the
repeal on April 1, which is fitting since the whole thing's a joke.
Unfortunately
Wilson and his ilk aren't kidding. They are super worked up about this. It's
all too much, too soon, too hot, and too fast.
Wilson
said in a statement of his opening remarks at the hearing, "I was troubled
by the process employed to repeal the law known as 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' this
past fall. I feel the repeal was rushed through the Congress without adequate
review and consideration of the full extent of the implications of
repeal."
Also,
the only people who feel this process was rushed are people who weren't
impacted by DADT and haven't been paying attention for the last, oh, decades.
The military has a long and undistinguished history of discharging gays and
lesbians, ruining their careers and, in numerous cases, their lives. If
anything, the United States took far too long to address this injustice.
And just
what are those implications Wilson feels have not been adequately reviewed and
considered? The fact is, the implications are hardly as dire as those in favor
of DADT would like you to believe. You see, the implications are only dire if
you think that homos are sex-crazed lunatics with depraved morals and no social
skills who can't help themselves around people of the same sex. Gays don't join
the military to hook up with guys. There are websites for that.
I doubt
any gay person has ever enlisted with fantasies of showering with groups of
naked muscle men and traveling "Pricilla, Queen of the Desert" style
through exotic Middle East locations. In reality, it's more like being packed
into Humvees with sweaty guys who haven't showered or changed their socks in a
week and watching fellow soldiers take dumps in irrigation ditches alongside
roads in the desert. You know, the sexy stuff.
To
Wilson, letting gays serve is a tragic result of political maneuvering. "I
believe the lame duck session was undemocratic in that dozens of defeated
Congressmembers adopted a law with significant consequence," he said.
"It was an insult to the principles of representative democracy."
Last
time I checked, it was still within the rights of Congressmembers to pass
legislation while still in office. And if, as polls showed, 67 percent of
Americans favored a repeal, that sounds like democracy at work to me. Of
course, maybe Wilson is of the belief that majority rule should only apply when
voting to deny rights to gays and lesbians.
"We
must get the process for considering the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' back
on track and ensure that our military is truly prepared to allow the open
service of gays and lesbians," Wilson continued. "We must ensure that
we do not make a mistake by allowing the repeal to move ahead when there is any
possibility that it will put the combat readiness of our force at risk at a
time our nation is in three wars with worldwide instability."
And by
"back on track" he means kicking homos out, not letting them in.
Because training people and then deciding to give them the boot just because
they're gay doesn't undermine combat readiness at all.