Last week, I noticed some, for lack of a better word, interesting things in Lori Moreth’s column about President Obama’s plans to eliminate "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." For example, she said that "Don’t Ask" was put in place in order to protect homosexuals in the military and that Obama wants to eliminate this sanction to get rid of any and all gay people currently serving.
How could I have been so blind? "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" was obviously put in place to protect gay people from straight people. Because we need to accept the fact that some people are ignorant and that we shouldn’t rock the boat. It’s just like when we had segregated public schools. All we were doing was protecting those black kids from the mean white kids, right?
If you found the previous paragraph completely ridiculous, congratulations, you have common sense. Moreth’s column last week was riddled with inaccuracies and asinine arguments. Let’s go through them, shall we?
The one that jumped out at me the most was when she said that homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder as recently as 1986. That is incorrect, it was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1973. But hey, what’s 13 years when you’re trying to make a valid argument?
Moreth also said that Obama wants to get rid of "Don’t Ask" in order to keep gays out. This is so ridiculously wrong I had to keep myself from laughing when I first read it. Obama wants to make it so anyone who’s gay, whether they’re in the closet or not, can fight for our country. I don’t know where you would get the idea that Obama wants to get rid of a rule that restricts gay soldiers…in order to further restrict gay soldiers.
She went on to say that a majority of soldiers may not feel comfortable with gay comrades. My response to this is simple: too bad. It’s 2009, there’s gay people in every walk of life and if you still feel uncomfortable around them then I don’t feel one iota of sympathy for you. Get over your prejudices and realize that the world is a different place. It has nothing to do with "political correctness" or "diversity propaganda." Wait, how is diversity propaganda a bad thing anyway? There should be diversity in every aspect of society.
I want to quickly mention how ridiculous the whole "gay agenda" hysteria is. Gay people are not trying to destroy us and indoctrinate our children. Actually, kids should know about homosexuality. That’s the key to spreading acceptance. They should learn about the history of homosexual intolerance in this country. They should know about key figures like Harvey Milk right alongside people like Martin Luther King, Jr. The number one way to combat ignorance is knowledge, and people need to stop being afraid of it.
My final problem with Moreth’s column was when she said that homosexuality is a choice. As someone who knows several gay people and has normal intelligence, I can safely say that it isn’t. You can’t help if you’re gay or straight, no matter what all the churches of the world tell you. Go tell the family of Matthew Shephard that it’s a choice that one can be purged of. If you’re going to use a public forum to defend a viewpoint, no matter what it is, make sure you have some idea of what you’re talking about first.
