I was heartened to read Frank Rich's column in this morning's New York Times, "Smoke the Bigots Out of the Closet." I realize that he is talking about using Admiral Mullen's stance about repealing DADT to reveal who among our legislators and other officials are still homophobes, but it brought to mind a letter to the editor in the NYT a couple of days ago that has been nagging at me ever since.
Clearly, Admiral Mullen's testimony will be smoking out more bigots than just those in prominent places. On Thursday, February 4th, the New York Times published five letters in response to the hearings about repealing DADT. Four out of the five letter writers wrote in support of repeal. It is the fifth writer (third letter published) to whom I'd been mentally formulating a response ever since. (As an aside: I wish the NYT, like so many other newspapers, would allow readers to comment on all content, including LTEs.—But I digress.)
The letter writer, one Brian Stuckey, first dismisses the very polls that Frank Rich cites in his column to explain the "curious silence" of the right in response to Adm. Mullen's testimony:
Even if the statistics are true, the moral conduct of America’s military forces should not be predicated on public polls. It is a matter of morality. And a nation’s morality is no stronger than the weakest link in the chain.
...The "weakest link" being, of course, at least in Mr. Stuckey's mind, the fact that there are homosexuals in the military — never mind rampant rape and sexual harassment of female soldiers, the near-legendary heterosexual promiscuity of soldiers and sailors on leave, and so on. Mr. Stuckey continues by criticizing the NYT's January 29th editorial that described DADT as "the relic of a bygone era":
But morality is not confined to a particular era. If the laws of God proscribed specific kinds of immoral conduct in biblical times, there is little evidence to suggest that such laws do not apply today.
This is what I've been dying to ask Mr. Stuckey ever since reading his letter: Do you eat shrimp? Do you eat shellfish? And then go through the "Bartlet take-down" that focuses on the cherry-picking hypocrisy of those who rely on their own interpretations of "God's will" to justify their bigotry:
Dr. Jenna Jacobs: I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does.
...
President Josiah Bartlet: Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I have you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. ... What would a good price for her be?
...My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?
...[T]ouching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?
Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?
Think about those questions, would you? One last thing: while you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tight-Ass Club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits.
—One of my favorite scenes from the West Wing. But back to Mr. Stuckey of the Denver chapter of the IT-A Club, who ends his letter with a dire warning:
A repeal of the ban would be catastrophic for both the military and the nation — especially in a time of war.
Yes indeedy, allowing gay soldiers to serve openly will incur God's wrath far more than the aforementioned raping of female soldiers; far more than the continued pillaging of our country by the corporocracy and its corrupt enablers in our government; and ever so much more than, say, invading a country on false pretenses and causing the deaths of tens of thousands and the displacement and impoverishment of millions.
As ever, it is a curiously tunnel-visioned god that people like Mr. Stuckey worship. And as ever, the sex-obsessed narrow-mindedness of Mr. Stuckey's god demonstrates all too well the human propensity to invent a god in one's own image.