PORTLAND, Maine (AFP) – Singing sensation Lady Gaga threw the full weight of her stardom Monday behind efforts to repeal a US ban on gays serving openly in the military, decrying it as “against all that we stand for as Americans.”
The pop provocateur electrified a crowd of several hundred in a park here in the northeast US state of Maine, home to two Republican US senators who Lady Gaga and other gay rights activists hope will break with their party and support ending the ban.
The openly bisexual singer — an icon in the gay community — has urged senators to vote to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a law that requires gay military personnel to hide their sexual orientation or face dismissal.
“Equality is the prime rib of America,” she told the crowd. “But because I’m gay I don’t get to enjoy the greatest cut of meat my country has to offer.”
She appeared to be alluding to the explosively controversial “meat dress” that she wore to the MTV Music Awards earlier this month — a provocation she seemed to confirm was an effort to draw attention to the inequality of the 1993 rule that requires gays to disclose their sexual orientation or face dismissal.
“I’m here because Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is wrong, it’s unjust, and fundamentally it is against all that we stand for as Americans,” she said to rapturous applause.
Dismissing what she called the use of homophobia as a defense in the argument that gays should not openly serve, she proposed turning the tables on soldiers who claim they can’t perform their duties adequately alongside a gay colleague.
“Doesn’t it seem to be that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is backwards?” she asked, observing that gay soldiers who “hold and harbor no hatred, no prejudice, no phobia, are sent home” while “homophobic” troops remain on the job.
“If you are not honorable enough to fight without prejudice, go home!” she said in her fiery 20-minute speech before hugging veterans who had been dismissed by the US military because their sexual orientation was disclosed.
COMMENTARY:
With all due respect to Lady Gaga’s comprehensive military experience and brilliant social insight, please allow me to offer a few fair, simple questions:
Miss Gaga, when discussing equality, are the rights of everybody taken into consideration or only gay rights? Does our constitution protect the rights of Christians, Conservative Jews, or Muslims who have sincere religious reasons for objecting to Homosexuality as a practice? How about nonreligious Conservatives? Do they have rights? Would these same people be allowed to express their disapproval of homosexuality if gays came out of the closet in the military? Would you be just as eager to protect their free speech, or would you insist (like Canada) that they remain silent out of a fear for some new “Hate Speech” charge, ironically creating a different kind of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” environment for those whose convictions happen to differ from yours?
Have you ever lobbied for male and female soldiers to shower and dress in the same barracks or would you instead (as I suspect) defend the privacy of any woman soldier who found that uncomfortable? Could you explain then, why we would not hold this exact same standard if people are undressing with those of the same gender who will also be sexually aroused? Can you understand why our generals and admirals would prefer to avoid this not so minor distraction? Are you aware that by reinventing the military, you paralyze the very freedoms you claim to cherish? Are you even capable of asking yourself these questions or are you too blinded by self-righteous arrogance?
Hurting the feelings of homosexual soldiers is not the desire of military commanders. But then, they don’t have the luxury of shouting platitudes from a stage to show off their sensitivity. Indeed, they are involved with a much less glamorous practice: Attempting to win wars. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, was actually a fair compromise taking everybody’s rights into consideration. Little did we know that those who wear the stripes are not the experts. Instead, we must be lectured by one who wears the meat. Just sing, Lady Gaga. That’s what you do best. And at your concerts, please consider sparing us those times where you also stop to talk. True, you have the right, but you are undermining those who fight for that right.
This is Bob Siegel, making the obvious, obvious.
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