What are the Republicans who voted against the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell thinking? Do any of them seriously believe that in ten years gay people won't be serving openly in our military? What is it that they gain from standing athwart the march of history yelling "Stop!"? Several of the no voters have said that they don't so much oppose the repeal as want more time to consider it. Since the normalization of homosexuality in America has been going on for forty years now, they might have had time to think this over by now.
I see nothing but spite and cowardice in this vote. These people are either venting their personal irritation at irreversible social changes -- irreversible in the short term, anyway -- or they are just afraid of having to answer questions from homophobic constituents. To these petty ends they are willing to sacrifice the careers of thousands of people who want to serve their country. It makes me sick.
Your indignation is laudable, but surely you aren't surprised. Vocal homophobia has been growing in the country's "red" population as much as acceptance of gay people has among the "blue." Obviously these senators are worried, not that gay people will be serving openly in the military ten years from now, but whether they themselves will be serving in the senate. I'm also not sure one should presume with much confidence that the trend toward acceptance of homosexuality will continue for the next forty years as it has for the last forty, any more than those who expected slaves to be freed after 1783, since increasing freedom was the trend, were right. Trends provoke counter-trends. Anti-semitism was certainly much stronger in Europe in 1900, after a century of increasing integration of Jews into general European life, than it had been in 1800.
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