Rep. Kingston's real issue? That anti-gay voices aren't as teflon coated as they once were

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05/03/2010

by Jeremy Hooper

In a letter to Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Ike Skelton (D-MO), Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA) accuses the Department of Defense of "silencing Biblical teachings." In doing so, Kingston cites Andrews Air Force Base's decision to rescind a invitation that they'd initially granted to the Family Research Council's incendiary Tony Perkins:

KINGSTON FORMALLY REQUESTS HEARINGS ON RELIGIOUS CENSORSHIP IN MILITARY [Rep. Kingston]

And in a subsequent conversation with Perkins, Rep. Kingston went on to say this about the the supposedly Christian-shunning president, supposed victim Tony, and those pesky gays who are apparently supposed to just shut up and accept their roles as less-than-equal tax-paying citizens:

(click to play audio clip)
*SOURCE: Rep. Kingston/ Tony Perkins [Wash. Watch Weekly]

So here we a sitting Congressman suggesting that someone like Tony should be free to accuse President Obama of threatening our national security, simply because the Commander in Chief suggests that gay soldiers should be fairly incorporated. Basically Rep. Kingston and MisRep Perkins are acting as if homo-hostile Christians have some sort of a right to say just about anything about LGBT people, the president, or national security without suffering any of the reproach or scrutiny to which any of us who speak are all beholden. These two are seeking a brazen double-standard, all the while accusing LGBT people of being the ones in search of some kind of "special right" to fight and possibly die for their country without having to endure an extra level of unnecessary fear that stems from nothing larger than who they were born to be!

So many fairness-stifling faith organizers want the freedom to carelessly criticize without even the slightest, most principled counter criticism. They want to shat forth some hearty mouth diarrhea, then demand that even those who they slighted just hold their noses and deal with it. Enough is a enough! Feel free to copy or to send your own:

To: [email protected] (House), [email protected] (Chief of Staff)
Cc: [email protected] (Leg. Director), [email protected] (Press Secty.)

Just moments after the State of the Union speech, Tony Perkins (or ghostwriter) wrote that this nation's Commander in Chief is "willing to jeopardize our nation’s security to advance the agenda of the radical homosexual lobby." For many within the military culture, comments like these go well beyond normal politicking and partisan politics -- they are unfair assessments of the person who outranks all other military officers. And since nobody is constitutionally owed a speaking engagement, that same military culture has every right to disinvite a speaker who has, on his own volition, put forth such a disrespectful judgment of the Commander in Chief's own judgment call.

In this, a civil rights and national security matter in which LGBT people are being told they have to wait around for studies and charts and opinions and legislation, a heterosexual person of faith publicly said, based on nothing but his own faith-based personal opinion, that openly gay soldiers are a national security threat. And this same faith leader is essentially saying that the President is causing this nation's armed forces harm by suggesting that all tax-paying citizens should be free to fight and possibly die for this nation. And yet he's the supposed victim here?! Please.

Then, just days after Tony made his initial comments about DADT repeal, Tony went on to say, with his own two lips, that gay people "are being held captive by the enemy." Fair enough. Soldiers of all sexual orientations fight for Tony's right to say such hurtful and offensive things. They do not, however, fight to make his immune from scrutiny or reproach.

On this Andrews issue: Your staff defends Tony Perkins's words at the peril of your own credibility.

-Jeremy

Jeremy Hooper
Good As You
www.goodasyou.org