A damn appropriate "backlash" at two haters.

(H/t to Huffington Post)

Kirkland, Smith face backlash on gay comments

Comments Republican congressional candidates Dr. Ron Kirkland and Randy Smith made about gays being "taken care of" in the military at a forum Thursday night in Paris prompted a backlash against the two on Friday, with an official from a state gay rights group saying the candidates should apologize.

A Kirkland campaign official says his candidate has no immediate plans to do so. Smith said in a phone interview Friday that he apologizes to those who took offense to his comment and that he has a gay daughter, but he maintained that he was "telling it how it is actually."

The two were asked about the potential repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy by members of the "Volunteers for Freedom" Tea Party group, who sponsored Thursday's forum in Paris. The question, at one point, asserted that gays have an extremely medically destructive lifestyle and, because of that, a repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" would lead to the federal government spending more on health care costs.

Kirkland, of Jackson, referred to his Army training during the Vietnam War and said: "I can tell you if there were any homosexuals in that group, they were taken care of in ways I can't describe to you."

Smith, a chef from Mercer who served in the Navy during the Gulf War, said: "I definitely wouldn't want to share a shower with a homosexual. We took care of that kind of stuff, just like (Kirkland) said."

What amazes me about that is the way in which both politicians seemed to be expressing their consent to, if not active participation in, gay-bashing. They might want to explain their discussion of it as "matter-of-fact", but isn't it entirely possible for a thing to be a fact, and also be an absolute disgrace that people need to stop doing? And does it make a difference if Mr. Smith has a gay daughter, if what he is basically saying is that he wouldn't stick up for, well, her rights if she were to serve?

If there were people "taken care of" in indescribable ways, I'd want to know of it if I was a CO because that would be a breakdown in the discipline in my unit, and that would mean I'd have people I could not rely on in some meaningful situation. I think that what they are saying actually proves the opposite of the position they want to uphold--if there was openness regarding orientation, this kind of indescribable abuse of a service member and breakdown in unit cohesion could be more swiftly addressed and rectified, because the affected party would be able to talk to his or her chain of command without fear.

But on another level, if they each witnessed the abuse of a fellow service member--do they even care what became of those actual human beings? That really bothers me. I'd like to think I would care. But they just see these "indescribably taken care of" people as examples. When they were patriots and soldiers, too--only different. In a way that never would have mattered in the field.