Silly Maureen Dowd Comment On Gays in the Military

From her column of June 10.

Be honest. Who would you rather share a foxhole with: a gay soldier or Mitt Romney? A gay soldier, of course. In a dicey situation like that, you need someone steadfast who knows who he is and what he believes, even if he’s not allowed to say it out loud....

Is she showing anti-Romney bigotry here?

If she means, “would you rather share a foxhole with a gay soldier who has intensive military training and combat experience, or a politician,” then of course she is right. But it’s a silly comparison.

But why is a gay soldier supposed to define “who he is and what he believes” in terms of homosexuality? Indeed, why might he not see his sexuality as a private matter? Why the need to proclaim it to the whole wide world?

The gay lobby will demand that he should, but he may not agree.

Interestingly, gays and lesbians are not nearly so monolithically leftist as the public rhetoric of the gay lobby suggests. The 2004 National Election Pool exit poll, for example, shows that 23% of gays and lesbians voted for Bush, rather than Kerry.

Part of this is the result of gays caring about issues other than sexual ones.

For example, the same 2004 National Election Pool exit poll showed 54% of gays and lesbians saying that “government should do more to solve problems” and 43% saying that “government is doing too many things.”

So back to Dowd’s comment: if a gay guy defines himself as an American and a warrior first, and incidentially as homosexual, we would be delighted to have him protecting us. If he defines himself as a homosexual who just happens to be a soldier, we’d be interested in knowing whether Romney is a good shot.