Anti-Gay Bigotry is Fading Rapidly

Our society has changed very quickly in its attitude toward homosexuality. It seems to me that as gay people have been more open, more visible in politics, in the media, in the arts, straight people have gotten over our initial discomfort and have figured out that there's no big deal there. It's not contagious, it's not diabolical, it's just the way some people are.

Of course there are those who cling to outdated explanations and interpretations of this everyday phenomenon. A handful of those people in Montgomery County have agitated to get the rest of us see it their way, and it hasn't worked very well for them. See, we have neighbors and friends, and we work with folks, and if they're gay that really doesn't bother us.

Republican Senator Alan Simpson has an editorial in this morning's Washington Post that shows you how far we've come.

As a lifelong Republican who served in the Army in Germany, I believe it is critical that we review -- and overturn -- the ban on gay service in the military. I voted for "don't ask, don't tell." But much has changed since 1993.

My thinking shifted when I read that the military was firing translators because they are gay. According to the Government Accountability Office, more than 300 language experts have been fired under "don't ask, don't tell," including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. This when even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently acknowledged the nation's "foreign language deficit" and how much our government needs Farsi and Arabic speakers. Is there a "straight" way to translate Arabic? Is there a "gay" Farsi? My God, we'd better start talking sense before it is too late. We need every able-bodied, smart patriot to help us win this war. Bigotry That Hurts Our Military

And you didn't even notice -- The Post calls it bigotry, just like we do. It isn't a "different viewpoint," it isn't "a religious belief," the more accurate term is bigotry.

I think the example of the translators might have been an eye-opener for a lot of people. Here our spy agencies are intercepting gazillions of messages between potential terrorists, and we don't know what they're saying because we fired all the gay translators. The only word that fits there is "stupid." That's stupid, period.

A little more, I'm not going to reprint the whole thing here:

In today's perilous global security situation, the real question is whether allowing homosexuals to serve openly would enhance or degrade our readiness. The best way to answer this is to reconsider the original points of opposition to open service.

First, America's views on homosexuals serving openly in the military have changed dramatically. The percentage of Americans in favor has grown from 57 percent in 1993 to a whopping 91 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed in a Gallup poll in 2003.

Military attitudes have also shifted. Fully three-quarters of 500 vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan said in a December Zogby poll that they were comfortable interacting with gay people. Also last year, a Zogby poll showed that a majority of service members who knew a gay member in their unit said the person's presence had no negative impact on the unit or personal morale. Senior leaders such as retired Gen. John Shalikashvili and Lt. Gen. Daniel Christman, a former West Point superintendent, are calling for a second look.

The deal is, people have gotten over it.

The whole controversy in Montgomery County is ridiculous, there are a million people humoring a dozen or so nuts who can't accept their neighbors and family members for what they are. It's costing everybody a lot of money, wasting a lot of people's time that could be spent on something constructive.

If the new curriculum needs to be improved, then let's go ahead and improve it -- that's what the pilot testing is for. But what we're seeing is a tiny cell of radicals who want to undermine the testing, disrupt the classes, not make them better. Those people are out of step with our community, and out of step with America. It is time to identify their behavior as bigotry, to call it what it is, and to shut it out. It's untruthful, unkind, and un-American.