Uber-bigot Tony Perkins hosted fellow wingnut Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty, on his radio show and they commiserated on the terrible evils of allowing gay people to serve openly in the military:
Perkins: The Department of Defense is kind of suppressing these differing views, only kind of giving a platform to those who are embracing this new policy, where do you think that pressure is coming from within the Department of Defense?
Crews: It’s coming from the very top. The senior leaders of the military are all presidential appointees, the senior attorney, Jeh Johnson, of the military is a presidential appointee. So these senior leaders fall in line with the president and his policy, who is turning our military into a social experiment, I believe, at the expense ultimately of what our military is intended to do and that is to provide for the protection of this country, to defend this nation. The current administration is turning our military into a social experiment to promote the cause of the homosexual agenda in this country.
That’s the exact same argument used by those who opposed Truman’s racial integration of the military too, that the president was harming the military in the name of some “social experiment.” The dystopic predictions from the loony right never change; they also never actually happen.
Crews: The jury is still out. I’m concerned about long-term retention and recruitment. How many moms and dads are going to want their children to go into a military where their son or daughter may be in a barrack that they have no control over, in a two-man barrack, a two person barrack, where they may be placed with a homosexual soldier and they have no recourse, so we’re concerned.
Uh, I’ve got news for you: There have always been gay soldiers. If you’re really this paranoid about sharing quarters with a gay man, wouldn’t you rather have them be allowed to be open about it so you know who they are? I mean, even from their own bigoted premise, you’d think they would support the repeal.
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yoav
July 17, 2012 at 12:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Isn’t that the whole point of civilian control over the military, the civilian authority make the policy decision and the military leadership say, sir, yes sir, and implement them.
At the same time it doesn’t seem like Crews and his buddies are at all concerned about the mind boggling prevalence of sexual assault against female soldiers, by straight men, a problem that actually exist.
eric
July 17, 2012 at 1:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No recourse for what? What is it that gay person is doing that requires recourse?
I hate to burst his bubble, but the military has been ordering soldiers to bunk with other soldiers they may not particularly like or agree with for centuries. Good Lord, many Universities do that to their freshmen; anxiety over ones’ possible roomate doesn’t stop kids from attending college.
matty1
July 17, 2012 at 1:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
FFS these are supposed to be soldiers how can they face combat if they can’t even get over the fear that some guy might think they’re hot? We aren’t talking about sexual harassment here, that would presumably still be banned, we aren’t even talking about being propositioned just the remote possibility that the man across the room might in the privacy of his own head think you’re good looking.
Taz
July 17, 2012 at 1:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I doubt this is the primary concern of any parent whose child is joining the military.
Raging Bee
July 17, 2012 at 1:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A two-person bararck? Do such things even exist? A two-person foxhole, maybe — but in one of those, chances are the gay soldier next to you is the least of your concerns, even if it’s just a training exercise.
How many moms and dads are going to want their children to go into a military where…?
This is the hot button they’re pushing here: ignorant over protective parents whose greatest fear is their precious babies growing up and being exposed to foreign ideas, influences, and practices they can’t even comprehend; and thus growing out of their parents’ world (and understanding) altogether.
Huge conquering armies don’t just threaten the conquered peoples’ way of life; they also threaten that of their own people, by exposing them to the outside world. Notice how fearful Americans are of the outside world after our army gets into two wars? It was the same after WW-II — which was followed by McCarthyism (and some even worse purges in the USSR).
Kaoru Negisa
July 17, 2012 at 1:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So…are these the same moms and dads who are also presumed to be proud of their child for going into a situation where they are very likely to die a sudden and potentially painful death? Crews thinks that parents will gladly risk their children’s lives, but will balk at the possibility they may be bunking with a gay guy? Is that really his argument?
matty1
July 17, 2012 at 1:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@5 You may be right about America but being pedantic the Soviet purges were more down to Joe Stalin being a dick than any fear of foreign ideas caused by WWII, for one thing they were a regular feature of the 1930′s.
On the other hand fear and hatred of anyone different was a key feature, now who does that remind me of?
marcus
July 17, 2012 at 1:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There is a logical fallacy here. You guys seem to think that there might be some kind cognitive process going on within the skulls of these ignorant fools. I’m surprised that they have the brain-power to remember to suck in another breath. Of course that is the function of the “lizard” brain so I guess their covered for autonomic functions, but just.
d cwilson
July 17, 2012 at 2:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And here I thought the military only recruited adults. When did we start using child-soldiers?
yoav:
But only when those policies don’t conflict with the wingut agenda. It’s just like state’s rights: States should be sovereign and able to make their own policies without interfence from the federal government, unless a state adopts a policy (like gay marriage) that wingnuts don’t like. Then we need a constitutional amendment.
eric
July 17, 2012 at 2:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Raging Bee:
I suspect that in Perkins’ and Crews’ dreams, the military consists of pairs of manly men, camping out together in the wilderness, with only a single pup tent between them. Mmmmmmm.
Those must be REALLY ignorant parents. Because any parent with half a brain should know that you won’t be protecting your kid from foreign ideas by enlisting them in an organization that takes them far away from home and forces them into units composed of people of different political views, races, backgrounds, and state/county of origin. While I’m sure there are exceptions, as a general rule I bet that military service is more of a cure for parochialism than it is a incubator of it.
Modusoperandi
July 17, 2012 at 2:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wrong. They also never actually happen yet. Dun-dun dun!
yoav “At the same time it doesn’t seem like Crews and his buddies are at all concerned about the mind boggling prevalence of sexual assault against female soldiers, by straight men, a problem that actually exist.”
To be fair, they probably aren’t big on women in uniform either. Oh, that didn’t help. That didn’t help at all!
eric “Because any parent with half a brain should know that you won’t be protecting your kid from foreign ideas by enlisting them in an organization that takes them far away from home and forces them into units composed of people of different political views, races, backgrounds, and state/county of origin.”
Wrong. America’s Army is for exporting American Ideals. Loudly.
Erp
July 17, 2012 at 4:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@9 d cwilson
Actually the US Military still enlists children at age 17 with parental consent.
Stevarious
July 17, 2012 at 7:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Because, of course, children with a mom AND a dad don’t grow up to be gay!
cheesynougats
July 17, 2012 at 7:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@matty1,
Maybe they’re afraid the guy in the next bunk won’t find them hot.
Pinky
July 17, 2012 at 8:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Recently some bigoted wingnuts stated:
What if. What if. What if.
“may be placed with a homicidal soldier”
“may be placed with a Liberal soldier”
“may be placed with a foreign national working their way into US citizenship soldier”
“may be placed with a robotic soldier”
“may be placed with a snake handling religious nut soldier”
“may be placed with a alien from Tau Ceti soldier”
“may be placed with a a rich kid from a well connected family soldier” (Strike that, would never happen.)
“may be placed with [a man or woman struggling to get by in this world who has impulses and desires, but does not bother others with them due to politeness and a sense of individual privacy, whose first thought would be to find a way to get along with their fellow soldier because they are fighting for the same cause] soldier” (Doubtful the religulous nutjobs thought of that one.)
As an old friend of mine, nicknamed “Maus”, would say about ‘what if’ absurdities:
2-D Man
July 17, 2012 at 10:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Like the second amendment!
dingojack
July 17, 2012 at 11:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Pinky – as my mother said: ‘if wishes were horses, beggers would ride’.
Dingo
—–
Pinky knows Maus? Seriously? :D
wscott
July 18, 2012 at 12:18 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[sigh] Someone really needs to hand these morons a copy of the Constitution.
[Devil's Advocate mode]I wouldn’t use the word “harming” the military, but to be fair Truman was using the military to push a political agenda. (Hardly the first or last time a President did so!) And as many DADT supporters pointed out, racial integration of the military was far from painless; racial conflicts within units were still playing themselves out during the Vietnam War 20 years later. I’m not saying he was wrong to do so; far from it. But to pretend it had no impact on military efficiency is disingenuous. The real question is did the social benefit outweigh the short-term military disruption; I happen to think the answer is clearly yes, but that depends on your values.
Now while it’s too early to say definitively, it looks like we have largely avoided such problems from the repeal of DADT. I think the major difference is that in 2012 gays are already largely integrated into most of American society, far more so than blacks were in 1948. So it’s far less of a “progressive” move than the wingnuts want to believe.
lofgren
July 18, 2012 at 1:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Even if less progressive I think it’s a pretty big deal. Legalizing gay marriage will more directly benefit more gay people over more time, but having openly gay people in the military will lead to more acceptance amongst the harder core of the bigot cluster, because those people also revere the military. It’s easy for them to hate happy people in love and deviant sex beasts, harder to hate people in a good crisp uniform who die for them.
John Hinkle
July 18, 2012 at 8:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That’s better.
wscott
July 18, 2012 at 10:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ 19: I completely agree.
Hercules Grytpype-Thynne
July 18, 2012 at 12:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ll never understand this reaction. I’ve been hit on by guys a couple of times and I just said “no, thank you” and took it as a compliment.
Modusoperandi
July 18, 2012 at 5:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hercules Grytpype-Thynne “I’ve been hit on by guys a couple of times and I just said ‘no, thank you’ and took it as a compliment.”
Actually, you kneed me in the groin and stole my wallet.