Liberals Ecstatic Over Potential Repeal of DADT; Every One Else, Including Military–Not So Much

Today’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has brought the usual loony left-wingers out of the woodwork to provide the customary liberal cheerleading.

Leading the charge is, of course, one of the Four Donkeys of the Apocalypse over on the NYT‘s op-ed page: Maureen Dowd.  The fiery-haired cousin of the Crypt Keeper shows her flare for drama by likening Admiral Mullen to some manner of Hollywood star for daring to join Hollywood, the MSM, and liberal “elites” in calling for an end to a perfectly sane policy:

On Tuesday, the craggy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff showed that a lifetime in the military has not knocked all the showbiz pizazz out of him.

“I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen said during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on dropping the archaic “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. “For me personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”

I respectfully beg to differ.  It’s not about “integrity” or homosexuals being forced to hide “who they are”; it’s about values, religious freedom, and homosexuals being asked–remember, service is not compulsory–not to make certain statements, engage in certain acts, or attempt to marry someone of the same sex.  That’s quite a bit different.

Again demonstrating her breathtaking ignorance, Dowd posits that Clinton was somehow cowed into not exercising his “authority as Commander-in-Chief and order an end” to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.  Dowd’s a halfwit; DADT is a law, not an Executive Order or a Department of Defense regulation.  Congress must repeal it.  But I digress.

To say that allowing homosexuals to serve openly would have a deleterious effect on morale and unit cohesion, while true, isn’t sufficient to win this fight in and of itself, as John Guardiano of The American Spectator states:

The reality is that in a rights-based political culture, where one group of people is aggressively asserting its alleged “rights,” you are politically defenseless and vulnerable unless you can posit an equally strong and countervailing set of rights.

Indeed, it appears that what we are being asked to accept isn’t the idea that homosexuals serve honorably, which I’m certain they do.  Again, Americans are being sold a bill of goods under liberals’ usual vague and ephemeral notion of “tolerance”, when what they are really seeking is legitimation and celebration.  It isn’t enough that we tolerate abortion; the furor over the Tebow ad shows that we must celebrate abortion by sublimating the urge to celebrate life to the insane and laughable concern that a mere thirty second story of life and faith might demean women and be viewed as divisive.  Likewise, it isn’t enough that we tolerate homosexual conduct within society; we must celebrate it by holding it up as every bit the equal of heterosexuality in every way and in every situation. 

MSM outlets like the Washington Post demonstrate their bias by declaring, in loud and celebratory headlines, that the “Pentagon Supports Ending ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Law for Gays in Military”.  Just so we’re all on the same page: No, the Pentagon doesn’t.  Admiral Mullen supports it, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is preparing for it, but “the Pentagon” is composed of many officers and civilians of varying ranks and pay grades, and I’m quite certain a goodly portion of them don’t support it, even if they do believe its overturn is inevitable and preparations must take place to make accommodations. 

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is effective policy that works.  Homosexuals are free to serve without somehow compromising who they are the same way that heterosexual men and women don’t sacrifice who they are when they obey General Order One in theatre by not engaging in heterosexual sex.  DADT is policy that ought to be left alone.