The Hunter Envoy

Issue date: 2/24/10 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: John Briggs

What is the military's preoccupation with trying to sniff out all homosexual soldiers? What's with the military's obsessive drag show of finding all the non-heterosexuals within the ranks of the theoretically macho armed forces? Aren't we living in the most progressive era of our nation's history? Won't we be the ones telling our kids that we elected the nation's first black president? That's in case you actually voted for Barack Obama. Don't judge me!

It's really great that we have finally elected our nation's first black president, but wouldn't it be awesome if Barack Obama was black and gay? We would have gone from the most uptight-hick-hillbilly-country bumpkin-bible thumper to the greatest president, like EVER! Too bad. Barack Obama, if only you were gay. Hey! It's never too late to pull a McGreevey.

So, Barack Obama, it's not too late. Let's give a jolt, a heart attack, a kick in the nuts to the mullet-wearing, NASCAR loving, beer-drinking bigots! I wish I could believe that our country would not need such a jolt in order to realize that if the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is repealed, that all the gay men in the military would not start humping each other in front of their superiors.

And if you thought that they might, then this is exactly the kind of thinking that has been ingrained in our minds by the right wing evangelical activists who believe that if gay marriage is legalized in the United States then a group, let's call them the "Gay Banditos," will start raiding the houses of good ol' American families, raping the fathers and molesting all their male children.

Let's not forget the feminine wing of the "Gay Banditos"; I even think that many of the uptight conservatives, mainly males, might be intrigued. But really, if things were so, then maybe we'd hear more about groups of rogue "gay" squads going AWOL. Is this what the military is worried about? Are these the same people who think that being gay could be fixed through shock therapy? Do they really think that if you're gay then you're less apt to be a good soldier?

Mitch Hedberg said in one of his stand-up routines that, "I never joined the army because at ease was never that easy to me. Seemed rather uptight still. I don't relax by parting my legs slightly and putting my hands behind my back. That does not equal ease. At ease was not being in the military. I am at ease, bro, because I am not in the military." The late comedian had it all figured out. Isn't all this training just one step away from putting on assless chaps and going to the Blue Oyster bar? (Google this one if you don't know what I'm referencing).

The last-ditch efforts of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy should eventually perish with the prehistoric and decrepit right-wing politicians who are afraid of change. The current generation of up-and-coming politicians should soon replace the ones that are afraid of change and who are on the verge of extinction.

Is the heterosexual male paranoia and fear of sexual advances from the same sex hitched to the idea that, by allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces, the quasi-macho male front will lose its last great bastion of exclusive machismo? Or, is it as Jon Stewart put it: "They are just afraid of a thousand guys with M16s going, 'Who'd you call a faggot?'"

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