The Real Consequences of Bigotry

Anti-gay bigotry is noxious enough when it stands between loving couples being able to be married or enjoy the fruits of some form of legal sanction, whether in the form of civil unions or other legal protections. But such bigotry is doing incalculable harm in far more tangible areas.

Take for example the wars we fight. There is not a serious observer of Islamic terrorism who does not argue that one of the key factors in winning against this relentless foe is to increase our Arabic speakers in the intelligence, military, and dimplonatic communities. The need for more speakers (and more language specialists generally) has become a truism, such an obviious assertion that we ought not to have to spend any time discussion it and move straight toward implementation. Andrew Sullivan shows how the US military has now dismissed 55 speakers of Arabic for being gay, and in the latest case, the military did not even bother with it's loathsome "don't ask, don't tell policy," but rather simply dismissed decorated former Sergeant Bleu Copas, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., and was a member of the prestigious 82nd Airborne Division, based on anonymous emails. Sullivan also reveals that being a member of a community theatre might be enough to cast aspersions on his or her sexuality, leading a reader to respond:

Just making sure I've got this straight:
Involvement in community theater is enough to not just disqualify, but actually remove someone from military service, while a "moral waiver" allows a high-school dropout with a criminal record to enlist in the military days after his last arrest.

No wonder Sullivan is moved to ask: "We really aren't serious about winning this war, are we?"

Such bigotry is not only harming the fight against terrorism either. The struggle to combat AIDS in Africa is every bit as vital to win as the battles against terrorism. And yet Catholic Relief Services has denied a priest a mission to Lesotho, the tiny, landlocked, mountainous southern African nation, because he is gay. Lesotho has been ravaged by AIDS. My brother is part of the CRS staff in Lesotho, and I am so proud to say that within an hour of when this news came down in his office in Maseru, he resigned. Apparently the fight against AIDS is another that the forces of bigotry are willing to sacrifice.