Sen. Jack Harper (R-District 4) explains his opposition to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” with a story from his military days. Jack nearly had to share a room with a pot-smoking gay soldier who eventually got kicked out of the service—and the soldier who did share a room with the homo soldier ended up HIV-positive! (He may or may not have caught the bug from the gay soldier. Guess we’ll never know.)
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2010.
“Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar. They’ll still be serving long after we’re all dead and buried. That should not surprise anyone. […] The conservative movement, to which I subscribe, has as one of its basic tenets the belief that government should stay out of people’s private lives. Government governs best when it governs least — and stays out of the impossible task of legislating morality. But legislating someone’s version of morality is exactly what we do by perpetuating discrimination against gays.” [And finally] “You don’t need to be ‘straight’ to fight and die for your country, you just need to shoot straight.”–Barry Goldwater