Republicans are very predictable. They have easy answers to every question.
However the economy is doing, cut taxes for rich people, and everything will turn out hunky dory. Cut deficits but only by cutting spending on a small sliver of social programs and never touch the military’s budget (or raise taxes on rich people and corporations). Eliminate the social safety net whenever possible, because individuals should be held accountable for their problems (unless they are rich people or corporations).
Kill the unions because we all know that unions destroyed America’s economy. Never regulate business, and especially not Wall Street, because regulations that, oh, save lives or insure markets are honest and fair, for example, just get in the way of rich people making more money to (allegedly) trickle down on the rest of us. And, of course, always blame minorities for everything and anything that is wrong with our society whenever possible.
So it should come as no surprise that former Arkansas governor, presumptive presidential candidate and (wait for it) Fox News Host, Mike Huckabee, has put Gay and Lesbian people squarely in his sights (again), so to speak, by publicly calling for the reinstatement of the infamous Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy for our nation’s armed forces. Because, hey, our armed forces would be so much better off if they could discriminate against gay people again:
Former Arkansas governor and Fox News host Mike Huckabee said Tuesday he would support re-imposing the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military if elected president.
“I would — because that’s really what the military wants,” Huckabee told OneNewsNow. “There’s been some talk that the military is fine with having same-sex orientation people. But if you really surveyed the combat troops, that is not at all the case.”
Yes, the troops don’t want to be teh Gay anywhere near them because it would make them feel all icky knowing a gay or lesbian is serving in their unit. We know that because …? Well because Mike Huckabee can read minds, I suppose. Oh wait, didn’t some commission already survey the troops about this very same issue? Why yes, yes they did. And the survey said:
The report found that 70 percent of troops surveyed said having a gay or lesbian member in their unit would have positive, mixed or no effect on the unit’s ability to “work together to get the job done.”
The report also found that 69% of troops surveyed believed they had worked in a unit with someone who was homosexual and 92% of those who believed they worked in a unit with someone who was homosexual rated the ability of unit to work together as very good, good or neither good nor poor.
So if you really survey the troops you;d find that 7 out of ten don’t give a flying squirrel about gays in serving openly in the military, and that 9 out of ten who knew or believed they had served with a gay or lesbian person in their unit stated that it had, at worst, no effect on unit cohesion and effectiveness.
That makes Mike Huckabee a big fat liar. But I’m sure that doesn’t bother his godly fundamentalist Christian conscience one iota (I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt in assuming he has a conscience). After all, its not like good loving Christian Republican candidates have never run on a platform of hating gays and lesbians before, now is it.
Proposed state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage increased the turnout of socially conservative voters in many of the 11 states where the measures appeared on the ballot on Tuesday, political analysts say, providing crucial assistance to Republican candidates including President Bush in Ohio and Senator Jim Bunning in Kentucky. […]
But the ballot measures also appear to have acted like magnets for thousands of socially conservative voters in rural and suburban communities who might not otherwise have voted, even in this heated campaign, political analysts said. And in tight races, those voters – who historically have leaned heavily Republican – may have tipped the balance.
And gay bashing didn’t stop on 2004, oh no. Not by a long shot. Just ask Sarah Palin, who while running for Vice President thought it would be a good idea to amend the Constitution to — can you see it coming? — make discrimination against gay people permanent:
In an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network, the Alaska governor said she had voted in 1998 for a state amendment banning same sex marriage and hoped to see a federal ban on such unions.
“I have voted along with the vast majority of Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote to amend our Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. I wish on a federal level that’s where we would go. I don’t support gay marriage,” Palin said. She said she believed traditional marriage is the foundation for strong families.
So, it’s no surprise that Mike Huckabee has raised the rainbow shirt of teh evil gay people in front of the Republican base of bigots who don’t mind being screwed over by Big Business interests so long as they know voting Republican means gays can be legally pushed back into the closet where they belong. Huckabee is (supposedly) going to run for President in 2012 and this is what Republican candidates do.
As for the fact that the vast majority of military service men and women have no issue with gays serving openly in the armed forces, well when have Republicans ever been bothered by facts? After all, telling lies about minorities and demonizing them gets a lot of narrow minded, intolerant, hateful people to vote for Republicans even when Republican policies are at odds with those persons economic interests. Just ask the Hispanic community in Arizona.
