This is what always comes to mind when the debate about gays serving openly in the military comes up: “What are you afraid of?” Gays have been serving in the the military all over the world for decades with honor and bravery and let’s be honest in American, as well, just hidden against their will.
Once again, another study is showing that gay men and women serving openly in the military will have no affect on unit cohesiveness. Why would it? What do people think will happen? That men and women will live in fear of being hit on? That these same men and women will somehow become homosexual by being around other gays and lesbians? Come on! Let’s be upfront here, it would be the openly gay men or women who would have more to fear from physical harm than straight men and women being turned gay. It’s time for this to end and it would great if it came to an end under the Obama administration.
Even though any threat of a boycott would have been a complete and utter failure, Wal-Mart has decided caving to Conservative Christain groups who opposed their efforts to be more receptive to GLBT issues was in their best interests. It simply annoys me when companies as large and as powerful as Wal-Mart turn out to be such cowards. These groups can posture and threaten to boycott all they want, but no boycott would have succeeded. Even though gay rights groups seem to be giving Wal-Mart a pass on this change, I think it shows Wal-Mart executives are cowards and backwards.
I’ve never heard of anything such as the “gay panic” defense until I read this article. Basically, it’s a temporary insanity defense that allows a person to walk away from hate crimes directed at a homosexual person, even when it leads to that person’s death. In the state Indiana, it could be used to free two sick bastards who have confessed to torturing, beating, and eventually killing a man simply because he made advances toward them! It says something about how Americans view homosexuals (at least in some parts of this country) as something less than human. That their sexuality something that warrants beating and torturing, and if the person dies in the process well that’s just the price they pay for being gay. Shame on the people of Indiana if they allow these sons of bitches to get away with murder.
Drury University is smack into the middle of Roy Blunt, conservative Republican land, so you would not expect such a well-known university — at least well know in the state of Missouri — to extend health insurance benefits and other services to same-sex couples. Hell, Missouri State University’s teachers couldn’t even get the university’s president to extend their non-discrimination policy to cover sexual preference. Something like this is unheard of in this area and I have no doubt people will protest the decision and threaten to keep their kids out of the school because, of course, the fact the university will now cover same-sex couples would mean they’re trying to push a homosexual agenda on poor, defenseless, impressionable students.
New Hampshire became the third state to approve civil unions between same-sex couples. Of course, it was along party lines with Democrats voting yes and Republicans trotting out the old traditional values red herring to justify a “no” vote. I just don’t understand why allowing same-sex couple in a committed relationship to legalize that relationship is an attack on traditional values. Isn’t the whole idea of committed relationships a traditional value?
I have to applaud two Democrats. First, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says it’s time to drop the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy instituted by her husband. I couldn’t agree more. If my research is correct, and I think it is, we are one of only small number of democratic, industrialized nations to openly prevent gays and lesbians from serving their country. European countries have been allowing homosexuals to serve in the military for a very long time, some of them our allies in Iraq, and have seen no detrimental affect on their military. This policy is wrong and should be done away with and I applaud Senator Clinton for having the balls to say so.
Second, recently elected governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, is saying he will introduce a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. Again, I say it’s about time this accepted discrimination be done away with. Any reason Republicans can come up with to prevent this from happening fails on its own merits. Some Americans may be uncomfortable with the idea of two men or two women marrying, but that’s no reason to enshrine discrimination into out laws.