Republican debate

I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about after watching the Republican Debate. There was a lot of the same: McCain still talking about giving the surge a chance to work in Iraq. Giuliani still running on fear. Romney and Huckabee love God. Tancredo hates Mexicans. Ron Paul seems like he’s at the wrong debate. Seriously, Ron Paul sounds like a college professor debating students. He answers a question about religion mentioning that the first amendment states that the Congress “shall make no laws”, and everyone else mentions how much they love god and how much god loves us. When asked the rare question, he used the constitution and reasoned political theory to back up his answer, everyone else went to knee jerk responses that evoked belief over reason. Stick in there Ron, keep trying to bring the Republicans back to their original ideals of small government and fiscal responsibility.

The thing I wanted to talk about is one of the issues, of which there are many, that I disagree with Rep. Paul of Texas: Gays in the military. I believe it is time for us to join countries like Great Britain and Israel in allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in our military. The way the question was posed to Rudy Guliani was, “Recently we’ve learned that several talented, trained linguists. Arabic speakers, Farsi speakers, Urdu speakers, trained by the US government to learn these languages to help us in the war on terrorism were dismissed from the military because they announced they were gays or lesbians. Is that in your mind appropriate?”. His answer was, “This is not the time to deal with disruptive issues like this.” When is the time to bring up the fact that we have a dearth of Arabic translators and we’re fighting a war against people who speak “Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu”? Would it be a better time when we can’t translate a key piece of intel until days after an attack? Would that time work for you? Why must “no option be left off the table” when it comes to interrogation techniques or the use of nuclear weapons, but gays wanting to fight for our country is an option that should not even be brought to the table.

We have a volunteer military, and they aren’t volunteering like they used to. At a time when the military is lowering it’s standards to include felons and no longer dismissing new recruits for drug abuse, alcohol, poor fitness and pregnancy (also in time.com) can we really afford to turn anyone away. Especially those as important as translators. Are we really that homophobic? I guess we are.

The work we have to do is too important and the costs of failure are too great to continue to feed the fears and prejudices of a small group of outspoken individuals. McCain impressed me the most when he spoke of Hispanic involvement in the military. He stated that if you went to the Vietnam memorial you would notice many names of Hispanic origin. And if you go to Iraq or Afghanistan you will notice many Hispanics and several who are not citizens, but merely have green cards and are still standing up to defend this country. He could have easily been talking about gays, and if he had any guts he would have. Gays and lesbians fight and die for this country all the while keeping who they are a secret and when they get home they cannot enjoy the same rights as every other citizen of this country: to fall in love, get married, to pursue happiness. Evidently the Republican party only supports “most” of our troops.

j.r.