OPINION:
It’s been a tough week for celebrity divas. From Washington, you practically could hear the obscenities screamed in the cabanas at Hollywood pools as the news sank in on Tuesday.
The U.S. Senate actually refused to take orders from Lady Gaga to homosexualize the nation’s armed forces. As Nancy Pelosi might say: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”
And Paris Hilton got dissed by Japan, which refused to allow her entry because she is a convicted drug violator. How dare the Japanese protect their moral standards? Because of their defiance, Miss Hilton also had to cancel dates in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Jakarta, Indonesia.
As for Gaga, she had made a video, done interviews and even appeared at a rally on Monday in Portland, Maine, designed to put pressure on the Pine Tree State’s “progressive” Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Wearing a Stars and Stripes tie, large-rimmed glasses and a dark suit, Gaga declared: “Equality is the prime rib of America, but because I’m gay, I don’t get to enjoy the greatest cut of meat my country has to offer.”
Gaga’s gay? We thought she was just decadent. Anyway, despite Gaga’s gift for bizarre metaphorical outbursts, the U.S. Army won’t be decorating the barracks fabulously anytime soon.
When the votes were counted Tuesday, the lavender crowd fell four votes short of the 60 needed for cloture. The GOP had held firm and gained votes from Arkansas’ two Democrats, plus Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Although the issue is dead for the moment, military defenders can’t rest. Mr. Reid, the architect of the misguided attempt to use the defense authorization bill to overturn the 1993 military law barring homosexuality, voted against cloture only to allow him to bring up the measure at a later date, say after the November elections in the lame-duck session.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Independent, the most consistently mislabeled “moderate” leftist in Washington, assured the online homosexual newspaper the Washington Blade that he has “received assurances from Democratic leadership that major defense legislation containing ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal would come again after Election Day if cloture isn’t invoked Tuesday.”
“If for some reason, we don’t get the 60 votes to proceed, this ain’t over,” Mr. Lieberman told the Blade. “We’re going to come back into session in November or December,” he said. “I spoke to Sen. Reid today. He’s very clear and strong that he’s going to bring this bill to the floor in November or December.”
Care to roll the dice in Mr. Reid’s Las Vegas as to what the American people would think if the lame-duckers did this following a huge turnover in Congress?
Well, we guess we know what Lady Gaga will be doing during the holiday season. Those interested in blunting her assault on the moral order might consider doing a mash-up of her megahit video “Alejandro” and her remarks at the Maine rally. In the “Alejandro” video, which has registered more than 82 million views on YouTube, the not-so-ladylike Gaga cavorts in a bra festooned with machine-gun barrels and writhes in sadomasochistic poses, interspersed with male gay porn imagery.
Somehow I don’t think this sad display of perversity validates her claim to be an expert on what kind of conduct is conducive to military cohesion, retention, readiness, recruitment and morale. But even in a jaded, culturally battered nation, Gaga failed to outduel Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a real war hero who spent 5 1/2 years in a North Vietnamese prison and led the fight to protect the military from Gaga’s legions of indecency.
It also helped that the bill had two other incendiary provisions: One would have allowed abortions to be performed at military facilities, and the other, the DREAM Act, would have given amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
Maybe Harry Reid didn’t really want to pass this while he’s in a tough re-election battle against Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle. He may have loaded it up to stroke three Democratic constituencies while guaranteeing the bill’s defeat. That could be the case. As Lady Gaga might say, “Whatever.” Either way, millions of Americans who made their displeasure known helped defeat this absurd and dangerous bill.
Among the bill’s many dangers would have been the beginning of “zero tolerance” toward servicemen and -women who refuse to go along with the idea that homosexuality is the equivalent of race or ethnicity. The first victims would be the chaplains, followed by any soldier with a healthy understanding of normalcy and morality.
Lady Gaga certainly knows what’s at stake. At the Maine rally, she suggested singling out straight soldiers who don’t want to share barracks with homosexuals: “Our law is called: If You Don’t Like It, Go Home!”
Indeed. Please go home, Miss Gaga, wherever that is. We sincerely hope and pray that you seek salvation in something more fulfilling than sexual exhibitionism, which is part of what G.K. Chesterton called the “materialists’ religion.”
And please leave America’s armed forces alone while they protect your First Amendment right to strut your stuff in public, corrupt our youth and make a pile of money while doing it. It’s also not too late to stop strutting your stuff and become a better example.
In the end, you’ll be very glad you did.
Robert Knight is senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union and author of the newly updated “Radical Rulers: The White House Elites Who Are Pushing America Toward Socialism” (www.radicalrulers.com, 2010).
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