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12/07/2010
Ironically, when it comes to the military, it's FRC that can't play it straight
Oh, Family Research Council flaws and offenses and outright untruths: Let us count the ways:
Nor do I think the British model of "recruiting at gay pride parades" is worth replicating. According to U.K. officials, that's where they've been forced to shop for new enlistments. (I don't know if you've had the misfortune of seeing a gay pride parade, but it's not exactly a scene from A Few Good Men.) The United States military is the best in the world. Sure, other countries may sprinkle a few drag queens in its units and call it "progress," but as the leader of the free world we don't have the luxury of using our military for social experimentation [SOURCE]
(1) No U.K. officials are claiming that they are "forced to shop for new enlistments" at gay pride parades. The source link that FRC uses simply says that U.K. officials can and do set up booths at pride parades (among a million other places), because they don't have a backwards law making that impossible! And that is exactly what British military figures say in other media outlets as well. There's no force -- it's a chosen, non-controversial action.
(2) Why the continued slighting of foreign forces? Some people's sense of American arrogance may demand that we compare rifle sizes, but the rest of us don't feel the need to discredit other country's military units in order to make ourselves feel superior. Especially when that supposed superiority is based around discrimination!
(3) "A few drag queen in its units"? Well perhaps, if one considers camo and rifle costuming to amount to a drag performance. But considering all military forces, home and abroad, have strict codes of conduct, dress, and performance that exist independently from how one might live or love or dress or lip sync in private life, these asides about female impersonators are silly, anti-intellectual asides played for fear rather than discourse advancement.
(4) Probably not a good idea for FRC to reference A Few Good Men, since "you can't handle the truth" is shorthand for both projects.