There is indeed an anti-gay action that's too extreme for John McCain. He led the fight against repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and he even went as far as to spread the idea that repeal will cause soldiers to lose their legs. He worked alongside the Family Research Council, and its leader Tony Perkins, to prevent gay soldiers from being able to admit they're gay without losing their careers.
Perkins has said that DADT repeal would force a draft, end religious freedom forever, kill people, turn the military into a group that organizes parades - and he's said even worse about marriage. His group is designated as a hate group for that reason.
There are already efforts underway to undermine the repeal, but those efforts seem futile. First of all, the Republican currently sitting in Jesse Helms' former seat voted for repeal. Yes, that Jesse Helms. A Virginia delegate has proposed a law to ban gays from serving in Virginia's national guard - something that is widely seen as impractical and legally dubious, and indeed even right-wing Governor McDonnell opposes it. The Republicans put forward a last minute poison pill amendment to the NDAA to kill repeal, which was shot down when Joe Lieberman objected. And just yesterday, the FRC said that it was working with John McCain to stop repeal implementation:
In fact, I've already been in conversations with Hill leaders about holding hearings in the New Year, as well as statutory and legislative oversight steps that can be taken to turn back aspects of the repeal and slow down--if not stop--the rest. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and others will be working with FRC to put a strict evaluation process in place. We want to ensure that the Pentagon is monitoring the effect of this radical change on the men and women in harm's way. One way to do that is demanding specific measurables--like tracking the sexual assaults, dips in recruitment and retention, combat distractions, and more.
They have been increasingly desperate over the past month and it will continue to get worse. The rhetoric is changing - it was depressing for me as a gay guy to read and hear all these things being said about us to tarnish our standing in this country - but now it's just hilariously outrageous. I don't even think people believe what they're saying anymore. It became obvious during McCain's final, very short, statement right before the Senate's cloture vote, in which he said that "today's a very sad day" and if you go to a military hospital you'll see people "with no legs, none" and that should give you pause while you consider repealing DADT. These word jumbles don't even mean anything anymore. They're just the words you'd expect from antigay folks in any argument "showers", "death", "blood", "liberal", "social experiment", "distraction", "cohesion", and on and on.
And it's getting more absurd. I read today that Afghan men beat their wives because they have had "homosexual" experiences in their past and that has caused them to... I don't know. But apparently now that DADT is repealed, US soldiers will have a more difficult time teaching Afghan men to marry and have sex with women and to stop beating them. Or something.
Virtually all of the younger men who beat their wives (over their inability to become pregnant) had been former "apprentices" of older Afghan men, who used them for their sexual pleasure. Upon entering marriage, whatever the men knew of sex had been learned during their "apprenticeship," at the hands of the older man. To put it bluntly, some of the younger Afghans were unfamiliar with the desired (and required) mechanics for contraception.
To remedy this situation, the Army called in its psychological operations teams, which developed information campaigns in Pashtun areas, explaining the basics of heterosexual relations and their benefits, in terms of producing male offspring. It may be the only time in the history of warfare that an army has been required to explain sex to the native population, to curb the abuse of women and young boys--and retain U.S. influence in key geographic areas.
Army psy op specialists declined to discuss their efforts in great detail. But one of the "preferred sex" campaigns was (reportedly) a direct result of the 2009 survey, and the problems encountered by NATO troops working with their Afghan counterparts.
While no one in Kabul (or the Pentagon) will admit it, the recent repeal of DADT may complicate the "sex ed" mission in Afghanistan. From the western perspective, there is a difference between relations among consenting, adult members of the same military, and young boys being traded into sexual bondage with older men. But the Afghans don't see it that way--and that may lead to problems down the road.
At least one psyop specialist (who participated in a previous sexual education campaign in Afghanistan) believes the Pashtuns will accuse the U.S. of hypocrisy. Once they learn that "DADT" is gone, the Afghans will ask us: why do you discourage us from activity you now condone?"
And, as Ms. Cardinalli observes, this dynamic among Pashtun tribes must be dealt with, one way or another. Ignoring it, she writes, fails to comprehend "an essential social force underlying Pashtun culture which can potentially affect the success of the U.S. effort (in Afghanistan).
It's gotten to the point where I don't even know what their words mean anymore, and people like Governor McDonnell and Senator Burr don't either. But McCain has held steadfast to his opposition, as irrational as it has been.
Until now.
Apparently, the idea of working with the FRC to hinder repeal implementation efforts is just too much for McCain:
But a McCain source tells us that's just not true, noting that "the law has been changed," and that's that.
I don't think this is a moment where McCain has come around and realized the error of his ways. I just think that these people are too batshit fucking insane even for the batshit fucking insane members of our Congress. There's simply no defense of these bizarre attacks. The law is being repealed. Everyone is behind it. Even the service chiefs who were not necessarily in favor of it, due to their problems with implementation timelines, have signed on and promised to do a good job.
The work needs to be done to implement this fairly and expeditiously. We need to stop focusing on blocking equality now that it's part of administrative policy. Even the most prominent bigot in the Senate is giving up, can't everyone else?