Crowd of Republicans boo an active duty soldier on national television for being gay

I can't fucking believe this happened. I watched this live and it made me sick to my stomach.



Here's a transcript I mostly nabbed from ThinkProgress in case you're at a place where you can't watch videos. You really need to watch it though.

Steven Hill: In 2010 when I was deployed to Iraq I had to lie about who I was because I'm a gay soldier, and I didn't want to lose my job. My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress that has been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?

[Audience boos him]

SANTORUM: Yeah, I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military, and the fact that they’re making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we’re going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege and removing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I think tries to inject social policy into the military and the military’s job is to do one thing — and that is to defend our country. We need to give the military, which is all volunteer, the ability to do so…and I believe this undermines that ability.

KELLY: So what would you do with soliders like Steven Hill. Now he’s out…so what would you do as president?

SANTORUM: Look, what we’re doing is playing social experimentation with our military right now and that’s tragic. I would just say that going forward, we would reinstitute that policy if Rick Santorum was president. Period. That policy would be reinstituted and as far as people in, I would not throw them out because that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration, but we would move forward in conformity to what was happening in the past, which is — sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself — whether your’re heterosexual or homosexual.

There are a few problems with this.

1. He says that gay people are "making a point to include it [sexual activity] as a provision within the military..." If you think sexual promiscuity is a requirement for being gay, then you're a god damn idiot.
2. Sexual activity in the military is not the issue being debated. Nobody is arguing that sexual activity among our soldiers should be encouraged or tolerated. The issue is soldiers being kicked out of the military because they're gay, and their colleagues using it as a tool for blackmail. That's the issue here, not your gay rape fears.
3. This is not an "experiment." We know full well what happens when a military has gay people in it--nothing. You can ask Canada, Germany, England, France, Italy, Israel (Israel, for god's sake), Japan, Australia, and basically every country on that planet that's not a totalitarian regime.
4. "Sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone." Right, we know. Except, people like myself take this attitude to mean that gay people can serve in the military.

There is no excuse for this. Nor is there a precedent in American history, I don't think. A week or two ago, Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul "Are you saying society should just let [someone without health insurance] die?" and audience members enthusiastically shouted "Yeah!"

The Republican party is powered by reactionary hate. These debates are not about coming up with solutions. They're about overhyping what little progress has been made in the last couple years, and foaming at the mouth trying to derail it. This is a cult.

GOProud, a group of gay Republicans (really) issued a statement, and said it better than I could:

Tonight, Rick Santorum disrespected our brave men and women in uniform, and he owes Stephen Hill, the gay soldier who asked him the question about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal, an immediate apology.

That brave gay soldier is doing something Rick Santorum has never done – put his life on the line to defend our freedoms and our way of life. It is telling that Rick Santorum is so blinded by his anti-gay bigotry that he couldn’t even bring himself to thank that gay soldier for his service.

Stephen Hill is serving our country in Iraq, fighting a war Senator Santorum says he supports. How can Senator Santorum claim to support this war if he doesn’t support the brave men and women who are fighting it?