Department of Heteroland Security
From the Associated Press, via Salon:
The White House said Wednesday a revised policy on granting security clearances to gays and lesbians does not reflect a change in how the government will treat sexual orientation.
The big—perhaps the only!—question is: then why fucking change it?
Children and the “War” on “Terror” are the two reasons that Republicans use like a body shield. In other words, they peddle fear.
The original language of the executive order originally stated that sexual orientation “may not be used as a basis” for denying clearances or determining whether individuals should be eligible to access to classified information unless, of course, it could make them vulnerable to coercion or exploitation. Ironically, that means that gay people who are already out of the closet have eliminated the largest vulnerability to such coercion or exploitation.
The new language reads that gays and lesbians may not be denied clearance or access “solely on the basis of the sexual orientation of the individual.”
The “conservatives” are doing the same thing here that they put in place with all of the “sex offender” machinery: they legislate specific and far-flung punishments based on abstract and overbroad conditions. Look to Iowa, where people are forced to move from their own homes because they'd bought places or rented places that have suddenly become “sex-offender-free” zones. Never mind that a “sex offense” might be solicitation or consensual adult sex in places deemed inappropriate, such an “offender” could still not be able to live within a certain radius of a school, for example.
And so it is with the new language in the security laws. They broadened and abstracted something that was succinct and absolute. They've created a situation where they can discriminate against gays by being cowards and pawning it off on some other “reason”. You'll see the Christians jumping all over this one, just like “hoody” did with the revisiting of the killing of Matthew Shepard. They'll do anything to prevent the engendering of sympathy or empathy towards homosexuals.
Watch the rhetoric and see.
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You have got to be kidding, GoB. For all the important affairs requiring a keen eye and steady hand in govt, you think a rewrite of an EO memo somehow translates into a witch hunt to deny gays access to national secrets?
It was a Clinton era EO --why the Hell should any other President or Administration give a crap about what SlickWilly needed or wanted to do to appease the radical GayLeft? It isn't open season on gays in Bush-land. What utter nonsense from the GayLeft.
Like that's not bad enough, then for you to go out on the highwire act and try to rationalize a link between a rewrite of EO and an appropriate local legislative effort to keep kids safe from all sexual perverts -not just the gay guys you pick up in the bar.
Sorry, GoB, if you've been restricted recently from picking up minors on the school playground. I don't think your gay nature will be the reason for denying you a security clearance... it'd be more like your paranoid delusions.
Good God, get a grip will you?
You know, I wasn't going to approve this comment to be posted, mainly because it contains homophobic bullshit and accusations to my person, but then I realized that it's *because* it's full of homophobic crap and libelous attack that I should go ahead and let it through.
Because why? Because it's a perfect illustration of how the right wing blogosphere dirty-bombs anything they don't understand or don't approve of (sorry, that was somewhat redundant...they disapprove of anything they don't think they understand).
Assertions such as "it isn't open season on gays in Bush-land", when he doesn't back up what he says. Then he insists on misunderstanding the level at which i drew a parallel—there was no rationalization.
THEN, he accuses me of illegal behavior.
Notice what it doesn't say. He doesn't offer any reason why Bush changed the wording, nor does he admit that the new language is more vague and therefore more vulnerable to loopholed action.
Notice, too, children, that he skips over any rational defense altogether, dropping multiple stupidities in hopes that rational and compassionate thinkers will insist on correcting his lies, leaving little time to address the real topic.
You're a gem, Michigan-Matt. You should be canonized in the pantheon of Republican Patron Aints.
GoB, my comment contains homphobic crap? Again, get a grip. I think I well understand what you're saying, why you're saying it. It isn't a mystery --but you're right, I don't approve of your wild-assed observations. And curiously enough, neither do 3rd parties who took a look at your original posting/rant.
I guess I missed the class where you explained commentators need to defend the actions of others in govt? No, GoB, you drew the inference that something sinister and evil was at the heart of the rewrite... you prove it, bucko. You cast the accusations. When I accuse, I back it up as you've learned over at GayPatriot today.
Sometimes the GayLeft needs a butt kicking. You got several today. I can live with that --although I'd rather that you learn how to think on your own instead of GayLeft groupthink.
But tell me, GoB, why did you find it necessary to hide behind an anonymous handle over at GayPatriot after you had already posted other comments?
Very queer --and I don't mean that in a good way.
Matt,
I think it is a bit ironic that you would infer this author is "picking up on the school playground". Considering the odds are that as a straight identified man, which i'm making the huge leap and assuming you are, stats show us it would be your orientation which is the dominant one in cases of child sexual abuse.
But that wouldn't be fair would it? Since making that kind of loose connection or analogy is clearly not doing so with an eye to truth. And it is placing the outcome of a complex set of demographic findings onto the individual instead of the culture. Of course in a way that serves to discriminate simply on attribute.
That dynamic is strangely similar in set up to the security clearance issue. The new way the EO memo reads, it would be stacked against an "out" gay person. Which if the idea is still a national security risk on the potential of blackmail, that makes no sense at all. Similar to calling you a dirty old man who picks up in the school yard. Make sense Matt?
Wow Matt. If I didn't know better, I'd say that was personal.
"and neither do 3'rd parties who took a look at the original posting".
What did you take it in for legal analysis? All you are saying in effect, is someone didn't agree!
The radical gay left may occasionally need a butt kicking, as does more often than not, it's evil right twin. Dogmatic radical howls tend to be stated in terms out of context to the real concern. But this wouldn't be one of those times. No matter what picture it paints, no matter how it fits into your ideological misteps.
To discriminate is wrong, unless that discrimination is valid and based in a clearly logical & reasoned approach. We don't hire blind pilots for example. Since 9 times out of ten they'd crash the plane! We don't allow people of a certain height to get on a rollercoaster. As they may fall out and someone would need to clean the tracks.
Your premise seems to suggest how I decide to engage my sexuality is material information when accessing security cleared positions. Why would it matter in any sense? I am an out gay man. Since the concern is a security risk, based on blackmail potential, where's the risk?. Or are there other reasons you feel gays should not be equal in employment?
Matt, I challenged McClellan's assertion that nothing had changed in the meaning, just the wording of the language. That's patently not true. There was nothing to back it up with.
The language is patently different. Its meaning is different. let's try something else. Let's say that I put language in place that says I cannot fire you because you're African-American. All well and good, right? Now i say I cannot fire you SOLELY because you're African-American...which is IDENTICAL to saying that if I can find a valid reason to fire you, then I *can* fire you for *that* *AND* for being African-American.
As for making assertions: yes, when you assert something, you should be ready to back it up with hard, objective evidence. But you don't do that, do you? :
But tell me, GoB, why did you find it necessary to hide behind an anonymous handle over at GayPatriot after you had already posted other comments?
I've told you it wasn't me. You haven't provided any evidence. and the only objective evidence to prove it *was* me would be to find out the IP address from which the comment was posted, then trace that to me.
you can *believe* what you like about whether I posted anonymously or not., bu tyou cannot FLATLY STATE that I was the culprit as if it were simply true.
Sad that you don't appear to know the difference between belief and truth.