Fail Quote of the Day: Tony Perkins on repealing DADT, redux

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins

Fresh from his recent loathsome attack against the honorable men and women (both gay and straight) serving in the US Military, the ever-odious Tony Perkins from the ever-misnomered Family Research Council is back for some fresh dose of nonsense fit for your quasi-daily Fail Quote segment:

Some people think allowing open homosexuality in the military means nothing more than opening a door that was previously closed. It means much more than that. It would mean simultaneously ushering out the back door anyone who disapproves of homosexual conduct, whether because of legitimate privacy and health concerns or because of moral or religious convictions.

Actually, to address his first sentence, repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is about a whole lot more than merely allowing more people to serve in the military. It’s about abolishing the legalization of systematic discrimination against the brave men and women who go up to and past the point of sacrificing their lives for their country and its ideals (more often than not in wars that have no solid basis in reasonable cause). Decent and honorable individuals who find themselves forced to live a lie and hide their true selves just to avoid being thrown out like unwanted vermin, all because of their innate and entirely irrelevant sexual orientation. It’s about standing up for justice, reason and equality. It’s about showing these men and women, gay or not, that their sacrifices shall be rewarded, not smeared and thrown under the rug because of which gender they’re attracted to the most.

Of course, though, it’s only natural that mindless bigots like Tony Perkins fail (or simply refuse) to see this, the abolishing of discrimination, for all that it is. No; to people like him, it’s all about censoring those who dislike gay people and would like to see them dishonored, castigated, or even imprisoned and killed. This is where he is utterly wrong, of course. Anti-gay bigots have all the right in the world to stay in the military and keep serving their country’s interests, and no-one’s saying otherwise. They just don’t have the right to discriminate against gay people for no rational reason anymore if DADT is thrown out. Not allowing them to bully other people because of their sexuality – or their height or the color of their hair, for that matter – is not censorship, and it most certainly is not “undermining religious liberty”, as cretins like Perkins so often and stupidly put it. As the old saying goes, your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of the other person’s nose. This includes your religious rights.

It both irritates and amuses me to hear religious kooks claim that not (or no longer) being allowed to discriminate against others is “infringing their religious liberties” or some similar variant. If that doesn’t speak volumes about the sort of rotten mentality that they possess, I don’t know what does.

(via @RichardDawkins)