The GOP vs Gays And Latinos – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
The GOP is now doing to Latinos what it did to gays. Its leaders – by backing the Federal Marriage Amendment in the last decade and now the Arizona law in this – are essentially saying that they do not understand how these measures could impact a minority’s collective psyche. Whatever the technical merits of either measure – and there were intellectually coherent (if, to my mind, unpersuasive) defenses of both – the lack of empathy or understanding is the real issue. It places the Republican “us” against the minority “them.” This is not just a failure of empathy; it is failure of judgment. The votes of Latinos will be massively important in the very near future, and the number of people who know and love gay people grows daily.
There’s more, read it:
The GOP vs Gays And Latinos – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.
Just add this to the list on DADT
The list of arguments against repealing DADT just got even smaller (well, to 0):
Ordinary Gentlemen talk about marriage
I’m intrigued by this blog. I found it from Jason’s post at Positive Liberty. He posts here too: The League of Ordinary Gentlemen. The idea of the blog is similar to this one, a bit ‘off the axis.’ I’ll have to keep reading it.
One conversation that might be interesting is the following questions posed by Jason K, there:
A place for Gays in Conservatism?
Andrew Sullivan was there and speaking. He has the video up. Very fascinating. That was the topic of a forum at the Cato Institute. Jason at Positive Liberty (who is employed at Cato) attended and wrote a brief commentary at his blog.
What struck me is the question he was able to ask Maggie Gallagher, and her answer:
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: some facts
Here are some facts.
Anywhere from 70-80% of Americans (including >50% of self-described conservatives and Republicans) support repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve their country freely.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, supports repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
Defense Secretary under Bush and Obama, Robert Gates, cautiously supports repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under whom the policy was crafted, Colin Powell, supports the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
Several nations, including two with active military engagements: Britain and Israel, have gay men and women serving openly. “Unit Cohesion” and fighting ability have not been affected.
Most Americans, the highest military leadership, arguably even much of the rank and file, experiences of other nations… It seems to me that it has become inevitable that the policy’s time is up.
From a position of individual rights and liberties, allowing service men and women to serve without fear of legal and professional repercussions seems to me to be a simple conclusion, but even from a conservative standpoint of a cautious approach to social change, the repeal of DADT seems to have met the criteria: society and the military are behind the change and experience supports the notion that such change will have few, if any, negative ramifications.
(and as a bonus, here is an interesting discussion among military servicemen and women about DADT’s repeal. Quite civil and thoughtful, hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)
