I hadn’t heard about the crowd booing a gay soldier during the debate last night, kinda preoccupied with other crap, until I read my sestrichka’s excellent reaction to it.
And after I’d read that, I realized that I didn’t need to say anything myself because she’d already said it for me, and in her wonderful, devastating style too.
No, this is not about DADT or the repeal thereof, I still stand where I stand on that issue, although it isn’t a huge one to me. I very much doubt that our military will collapse because of it, I just didn’t think it was a good idea. But, as I said, it’s not about that, not at all.
What is is about is the embarrassing, vile, disgusting disrespect shown to that troop for simply having the nerve to ask the candidates a question about something relevant to him.
That man is currently serving, voluntarily, in country getting his ass shot at, wearing our nation’s uniform and that doesn’t rate your respect enough that you can refrain from booing at him because you don’t agree with him? Really?
He, like anybody else serving, sacrificed a safe, cozy life behind the lines because he loves our nation. He’s not unique in that, not at all. But he also sacrificed being himself, agreed to deny part of himself because, to him, his love of his country was just so much more important to him than what he is. He didn’t have to, you know. Our military is made up of volunteers. But he chose to do so anyway because this nation, your right to be safe to be flaming fucksticks of the first fetid water, was more important to him.
That doesn’t rate your respect?
Listen, I’m not saying that you have to respect his opinion, nobody has to do that, but could you at least, at the very fucking least, respect his service to our nation, his person and his right to have an opinion, just like the rest of you?
Could you? Oh, and perhaps, if it’s not too fucking much to ask, Senator Santorum, could you maybe work on pushing the following words past your flapping, fat, useless lips when you meet a member of our armed forces:
“Thank you for your service.”
Fucking embarrassing.
Thatisall.
UPDATE: LC Ogrrre points us to a different account of what happened from somebody who states she was there:
The debate included video questions that were submitted on YouTube, and one came from a soldier serving in Iraq who is gay and asked about the candidates’ opinions on don’t ask don’t tell. There was audible booing after his question…however, please note that it was not the crowd booing. It was only one or two people.
I was at the debate, in the audience on the right hand side about halfway back (here’s my tweet of the video screen that was right in front of us). The person who booed was just a few rows in front of us. The booing got an immediate and angry reaction from nearly everyone sitting around him, who hissed and shushed at him. Lots of loud gasps, “Shhhh!” “No!” “Shut up, you idiot!” etc.
That certainly puts the incident in a different light. At the very least, it limits the number of flaming fucksticks to one or two. Also, it certainly does portray the crowd as a whole in a better light. In particular, I would like to personally thank the members of the audience who found it in themselves to do what Sen. Santorum failed miserably to do when they told the yipping coyote shit cockholster(s) to shut the fuck up.
As to the booer(s), my opinion has not changed one tiny iota and it stands as written. I hope they go take a flying leap at a rolling donut and die in a horrid mess of mangled limbs as they roll into the maw of a running combine harvester.