"Don't ask, don't tell"

And, again, you confuse the difference between a behavior and a race.

 

A completely private behavior. Discrimination against gays because of "behavior" is as arbitrary as discriminating against, say men who receive oral sex from their girlfriends.

 

If it's just a behavior, why not just make the behavior against the rules?

 

I don't think you can, constitutionally, after Lawrence v. Texas.

It's not a "behavior" anyway. It's an immutable characteristic just like race or gender. It's like discriminating against people who sleep on their backs instead of on their stomachs. Or vegetarians. It's a variation of a completely normal biological function.

 

I've officially lost all respect for John McCain. First, back in the fall, he backs a comment Orrin Hatch made that, "If Teddy was here, we'd have health care," knowing damn well he had no intention of voting for any health care bill.

Now, after years of saying "support the brass, support the brass," he bitches about the brass when they go against him.

Thanks for your years of service as a soldier and Senator, John. But spare me any bullshit about how you're a maverick. And forgive me if I say that you're experience in the military in the 1960s and 1970s doesn't qualify you to ultimately decide all military policy now. Shit changes, John. Shit changes.

 

Has McCain ever been a social conservative until now? I know why he's doing it, because he's running against a very conservative challenger in his state primary, but this is the same guy who talked about "agents of intolerance." Seems like a very long time ago.

 

I was always under the impression that Clinton had every intention of lifting the ban on gays in the military, but stepped back when he was told how against it the heads of the military were. Well, it's 18 years later.

I'm glad Obama lifted the ban, but I also understand McCain's concerns. This will not be a popular move from the military standpoint, but that's still not a decent enough reason to keep gays out of the military.

 

I understand it too. He's a politician, just like Tancredo and Huckabee and Romney and all the other righties who made their comments about, "Well, when the military brass says change it, we'll change it," thinking that there was no way in hell that the military would ever come around to the idea. Because in the minds of people like Tancredo and Huckabee, how could our macho military men and women, and especially the brass, ever come around to supporting homos in the military?

And now, they're trapped. They look like idiots either way. They can't support it because those who fear TEH GAY won't vote for them. They look like hypocrites if they go against what they already said.

 

But should we let bigots get a veto on people's rights? A lot of things that are legal are unpopular. I'm sure a lot of military guys didn't like it when minorities were integrated into the military, either. And that argument is also uncomfortably reminiscent of the arguments against school integration in the 1950's, that the students, parents, principles and teachers directly affected by it would be displeased. Well, tough shit. It's not up for a vote.

 

Apparently we are, since Bob Bennett is trying to block same sex marriage in DC. Because state's rights matter to the GOP, until a liberal "state" like DC tries to exercise its own rights. Then we've got to protect people from their government.

 

I've raised this a hundred times on this board, but what is the legitimate state interest protected by a gay marriage ban? How can it possibly be constitutional for any state to ban gay marriage? I've never gotten a satisfactory answer, and I've looked high and low for one.