Day: September 23, 2011

Disrespect Shown Gay Soldier by GOP Candidates at Debate Even Offends a Few Conservatives

Jon Ponder

Stephen Hill
Stephen Hill
Here’s a pleasant surprise. Jim Geraghty at the National Review Online has called out Republicans for their boorish treatment of a gay soldier who asked a question about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. And he’s not talking about the jerks in the audience who booed:

Rereading the transcript of last night’s debate, I am struck that Rick Santorum did not thank Stephen Hill, a gay soldier in the U.S. Army currently in Iraq, for his service. Nor did anyone else on that stage.

Whatever you think of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ or homosexuality, Hill is risking his life on behalf of his country. It is troubling, and revealing, that Santorum’s answer entirely defined Hill as a gay man first and as a soldier second, if at all.

Former Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer tweeted:

Booing a soldier serving our nation is uncalled for. If I were on stage, I would make that point.

Andrew Sullivan, a moderate, lapsed supporter of the GOP, is pissed:

I have become used to hearing gay people and our lives either ignored or stigmatized or demonized in Republican debates. It is a function of a political party becoming a religion. And so my skin is pretty thick at this point, and my outrage button eroded by two decades of learning to ignore this stuff and focus on the positive arguments we have to make…

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Carter Condemns Capital Punishment

Buck Banks

If one of our fellow citizens can be executed with so much doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our country is unjust and outdated. We hope this tragedy will spur us as a nation toward the total rejection of capital punishment.

— Jimmy Carter, quoted by USA Today, on the the execution of Troy Davis by the state of Georgia last night.

Is God Smiting Texas?

Jon Ponder
map-texas-drought

When disasters strike in the United States, Republican evangelicals are quick to blame liberals and their wanton ways for bringing God’s wrath onto the land.

In 2001, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell blamed the ACLU, feminists and gays, among others, for the 9/11 attacks. In 2005, Pastor John Hagee of Texas, John McCain’s Catholic-hating buddy from the 2008 campaign, asserted that God smote New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina because it was the site of Southern Decadence, an annual gay event in the French Quarter.

And yet — as we have noted here (and here, here and here) — evangelicals are always silent when disasters hit them in their own backyards.

Rachel Maddow picked up on this theme on her MSBNC show last night, reporting that Cindy Jacobs — a self-proclaimed prophet and theocrat who pals around with Republican presidential frontrunner Rick Perry — has proclaimed that because Perry hosted a prayer meeting, which he called “the Response,” in Houston on Aug. 6, God has healed the state of Texas:

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The Line: GOP Debate in Orlando

Jon Ponder

  • The room full of tea baggers at last night’s debate in Florida did not cheer at references to executing people or letting the uninsured die, but they could not pass up an opportunity to hate on the gays. The crowd booed during a video question from an active-duty U.S. serviceman who said he was gay. “I guess we only respect the troops Republicans approve of,” wrote Digby. “Good to know.”
  • The soldier’s question was put first to Rick Santorum, the infamous homophobe. His response was typically bizarre: “I would say, any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.” (Tell it to the Marines, Rick.) David Weigel wrote, “The truly odious moment on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell — possibly the first ever booing of an active duty soldier at a Republican debate — will be remembered beyond [Santorum’s] predictable attacks on the patriotism of anyone who doesn’t favor constant aggressive warfare.”
  • “As with all the Republican debates,” wrote Jonathan Chait, at his new digs at New York magazine, “this one devolved into a contest to see whether Rick Perry or Mitt Romney could most persuasively paint the other one as reasonable.”

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