The Gay Murders In Iraq

As we celebrate the progress on gay rights in Vermont and Iowa and Washington, DC, we must acknowledge the grisly backsliding on gay rights in Iraq.

The relative freedom of a newly democratic Iraq and the recent improvement in security have allowed a gay subculture to flourish here. The response has been swift and deadly.

In the past two months, the bodies of as many as 25 boys and men suspected of being gay have turned up in the huge Shiite enclave of Sadr City, the police and friends of the dead say. Most have been shot, some multiple times. Several have been found with the word “pervert” in Arabic on notes attached to their bodies, the police said.

“Three of my closest friends have been killed during the past two weeks alone,” said Basim, 23, a hairdresser. “They had been planning to go to a cafe away from Sadr City because we don’t feel safe here, but they killed them on the way. I had planned to go with them, but fortunately I didn’t.” [...]

“Homosexuality is against the law,” said Lt. Muthana Shaad, at a police station in the Karada district, a neighborhood that has become popular with gay men. “And it’s disgusting.”

For the past four months, he said, officers have been engaged in a “campaign to clean up the streets and get the beggars and homosexuals off them.”

Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for the death of gays and lesbians as far back as 2005. Homosexuality generally is frowned upon in Iraqi society, which has grown more religious and more conservative since we invaded. But as long as 140,000 Americans risk their lives to protect Iraqis and provide for their security, I can't see how we can stay silent about the indiscriminate murder of an entire class of citizens.

Rejoining The World

The real tragedy is that for eight years America refused to sign this, a demurral that will end.

The Obama administration will endorse a U.N. declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality that then-President George W. Bush had refused to sign, The Associated Press has learned.

U.S. officials said Tuesday they had notified the declaration's French sponsors that the administration wants to be added as a supporter. The Bush administration was criticized in December when it was the only western government that refused to sign on.

The move was made after an interagency review of the Bush administration's position on the nonbinding document, which was signed by all 27 European Union members as well as Japan, Australia, Mexico and three dozen other countries, the officials said.

Our ability to speak out against human rights abusers throughout the world has been severely limited by the past eight years. So this is good. However, we have a long way to go. Repealing DOMA, stopping the shutdown of lawsuits through state secrets, ending the assertion of indefinite detention, &c...

Heroes Of The Stupid

The difference between Horatian and Juvenalian satire is that Horatian satire simply presents folly and holds it up for ridicule, while Juvenalian satire attacks that folly directly.

I'm a little tired today, so I'm going to go all Horatian on war correspondent Joe the Plumber:

"I'll be honest with you. I don't think journalists should be anywhere allowed war. I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what's happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I-I think it's asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you'd go to the theater and you'd see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for'em. Now everyone's got an opinion and wants to downer--and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers. I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you're gonna sit there and say, 'Well look at this atrocity,' well you don't know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it."

And RedState head cheerleader Erick Erickson:

We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. Those rough men might hesitate knowing their commander-in-chief just might not stand behind them if their actions become known. Their hesitation will lead to American deaths.

And potential RNC Chair Ken Blackwell:

Gay-rights activist and talk-radio host Michelangelo Signorile has posted an amusing piece of audio of Ken Blackwell during the Republican National Convention, telling Signorile that homosexuality is a compulsion that can be "restrained," and he's quite confident he would be able to suppress it within himself -- though of course he's never had any sort of problem like that.

"I've never had to make the choice because I've never had the urge to be other than a heterosexual," Blackwell said, "but if in fact I had the urge to be something else I could have in fact suppressed that urge."

I mean, sure, you can go to all the trouble of making the jokes, and satirizing them to within an inch of their lives, but don't they do a much better job themselves?

Hoping For A Bank Shot

We're at the part in the Rick Warren controversy where some "good liberals" like E.J. Dionne come out of the woodwork to defend the mistaken decision because, I guess, Warren and his cadres might spontaneously alter their own deeply held beliefs, and then how awesome will everything be?

Liberals who see Warren as a garden-variety conservative evangelical defined primarily by his opposition to gay marriage accuse Obama of selling them out. Gays and lesbians enraged by Warren's strong opposition to gay marriage in last month's California referendum charge Obama with pandering to white evangelicals and fear the president-elect has gone out of his way to offend them in order to curry favor with straight conservatives.

But a more benign view on parts of the religious left casts Warren as the evangelical best positioned to lead moderately conservative white Protestants toward a greater engagement with the issues of poverty and social justice, and away from a relentless focus on abortion and gay marriage.

I mean, this is just a fantasy. I know that Dionne thinks Democrats can crack this Da Vinci Code and get evangelicals to focus on different issues than they historically have, and that may be true at the margins, but for the most part, religious white Protestants care about gay marriage and abortion because that's been the sum total of their political engagement for decades. To ask them to subsume that is to ask them to subsume their personal ideology, and in some respects their morality. I just think it's very naive to believe that will change. Yesterday the Pope called fighting homosexuality as consequential as protecting the rainforest. The E.J. Dionnes of the world would say that I should be thrilled that the Pope cares about the rainforest.

The major political issue that Warren has involved himself over the past half-decade is Prop. 8. That's just a fact. He spent no political capital on extending unemployment benefits or increasing the minimum wage. I appreciate the thought, expressed by Melissa Etheridge, that if gay people just talk to someone like Warren, they can open his eyes, but while I think that is true with the vast apolitical or low-information sections of the country, it's not likely to work with an evangelical leader or his flock.

I fall more along the lines of Katha Pollitt:

To understand how angry and disappointed many Democrats are that Barack Obama has invited evangelical preacher Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural, imagine if a President-elect John McCain had offered this unique honor to the Rev. Al Sharpton -- or the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. I know, it's hard to picture: John McCain would never do that in a million years. Republicans respect their base even when, as in McCain's case, it doesn't really return the favor.

Only Democrats, it seems, reward their most loyal supporters -- feminists, gays, liberals, opponents of the war, members of the reality-based community -- by elbowing them aside to embrace their opponents instead [...]

In a news conference Thursday, Obama defended the choice of Warren: "It is important for the country to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues." That's all very well, but excuse me if I don't feel all warm and fuzzy. Obama won thanks to the strenuous efforts of people who've spent the last eight years appalled by the Bush administration's wars and violations of human rights, its attacks on gays and women, its denigration of science, its general pandering to bigotry and ignorance in the name of God.

I'm all for building bridges, but honoring Warren, who insults Obama's base as perverts and murderers, is definitely a bridge too far.

Hear hear.

Midnight Riders

This is the most unconscionable of Bush's "midnight regulations."

The Bush administration, as expected, announced new protections on Thursday for health care providers who oppose abortion and other medical procedures on religious or moral grounds.

“Doctors and other health care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience,” Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a statement on his department’s Web site.

The rule prohibits recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and health care aides who refuse to take part in procedures because of their convictions, and it bars hospitals, clinics, doctors’ office and pharmacies from forcing their employees to assist in programs and activities financed by the department.

This will have profound consequences for women's health. There is nothing here that doesn't bar doctors from refusing to deliver birth control, for example, or the morning-after pill, or even let someone know where those services or family planning services can be provided. As Hilzoy said, this is a lazy person's dream.

This is a wonderful rule for slackers, since it provides a legally protected way to get paid while doing no work at all. Here's the plan:

(1) Get an MD, and a job as a doctor.
(2) Become a Christian Scientist.
(3) Announce your religious objection to participating in any medical procedure, or to supporting such procedures in any way (e.g., by doing the other doctors' paperwork. This refusal would be protected under the rule.)
(4) When your employer protests, explain that your right to refuse to participate in any medical procedure at all is legally protected under this rule.

Voila: white-collar welfare! See how easy?

I guess that makes it the Bartleby rule?

If you're not totally proud of your country right now, I'll give you another reason:

Alone among major Western nations, the United States has refused to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality.

In all, 66 of the U.N.'s 192 member countries signed the nonbinding declaration — which backers called a historic step to push the General Assembly to deal more forthrightly with any-gay discrimination. More than 70 U.N. members outlaw homosexuality, and in several of them homosexual acts can be punished by execution.

Co-sponsored by France and the Netherlands, the declaration was signed by all 27 European Union members, as well as Japan, Australia, Mexico and three dozen other countries. There was broad opposition from Muslim nations, and the United States refused to sign, indicating that some parts of the declaration raised legal questions that needed further review.

It's a good thing we have a new President who would never validate anyone with beliefs like we see here with the conscience rule or criminalizing homosexuality. Oh wait...

(I should note, in the interest of fairness, that the Obama transition team is committed to reversing the provider conscience rule.)

Web Of Lies

The Yes On 8 team isn't hiding it anymore. Their entire argument for banning same-sex marriage has nothing to do with taking away the right of gay people to marry - if it was they'd straight-up lose. Instead, they are offering a whole array of residual effects, like claiming that this would force homosexuality to be taught in public schools (not true) and churches will lose their tax exemptions (not true) and your son will be forced at gunpoint to gay marry the neighbot boy (not true, and not what they're claiming, but it might as well be).

The entire point is to make people feel icky, to play to their base instincts, and to make it seem like a vote to ban the protected rights of hundreds of thousands of citizens is actually a vote to protect their own rights. It's Machiavellian and really ugly. The No side is fighting back, but I'm not sure their soft-pedal approach is really going to work.



I understand that they're walking a tightrope, and focusing on equality makes sense. But this is a weird meta-campaign where nobody is talking about the real issue, just their "feelings" and their faulty assumptions of what would never happen. Saying "the Yes on 8 ads are filled with lies" would be a start. This reassurance business might capture undecideds at the margins, but people need to know who the dirty tricksters are. How about a spot showing the 11,000 gay couples who have already married and ripping up their marriage licenses? How about some of these people calling out the lies and calling discrimination what it is?

There's a lot of concern right now. Two recent polls show Prop. 8 winning, though not over 50% yet. Their ads are having an effect and they have lots of money.

If you can, donate to No on 8 and give some of your time. Barack Obama may be important but our local community matters too. Pass around this ad from the Courage Campaign. Spread the word. We have to defeat this bill or else discrimination will be enshrined into our state constitution.

UPDATE: And the second after I write this, No on 8 puts out an ad calling out the lies. Good on them. Instant gratification!

Our Unbelievably Stupid Culture

So the fundamentalist American Family Association has a news site that filters every AP story, changing the word "gay" to "homosexual," because... well, I don't really know, but in their twisted minds using the word "gay" is hiding homosexuality.

This is how we got headlines like this today on their site. The track and field star being discussed in these headlines is named Tyson Gay.



Sigh. Days like today really make me want to stick my head in a bucket of cold water for a month. The stupid does burn so.

It Beats Ray Jay And Kim Cardashian

I know that there's a lot of concern on the fundie right about a possible Charlie Crist Vice Presidency, not because he's a popular governor or he's young or he gives John McCain a leg up in the swing state of Florida. But could it be that McCain supporters in the conservative establishment as trying to quell these rumors by floating a make-out tape with Crist and some woman? (h/t HuffPo)

How interested is Florida Governor Charlie Crist in being John McCain's VP runningmate? So much so that veteran GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone -- who coordinated a few dirty stunts in support of Crist during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign -- is quietly peddling a so-called "Charlie Crist sex tape." That's what Stone called it during a telephone conversation. And no, it is not a tape of Crist having sex with a guy. In fact, it isn't even X-rated. The video was seemingly staged to kill the rumors that Crist is gay. Stone claims the tape -- which he discussed recently with Politics1, but didn't show to us ("I'm saving it for the national shows") -- "shows Charlie fooling around in a hotel elevator with his girlfriend ... They're making out." Adds Stone: "It was captured on a security camera in the elevator" last month. And Stone just conveniently happens to have a copy of the hotel's elevator surveillance tape, just when Crist's name is in play for the VP spot. Hmm. As for Crist's purported girlfriend -- presuming it is the same one he took as his date to the White House Correspondents Dinner in DC a few weeks ago -- she's still married (and not to Crist). Disclaimer: Always be skeptical of anything from Stone.

How would cheating publicly with a married woman - and before marriage, no less - shore up Crist's standing with the religious right? It doesn't make a bit of sense.

But Roger Stone is an odd bird. The New Yorker did a profile recently. He's still the high priest of ratfucking in Republican politics. Still trying to figure out his angle on this one, however.

Reduced To Yelling "Faggot"

The all-important weighing in from Jeff Gannon on the McClellan book.

What I hear about the book does not sound like the Scott McClellan I knew for two years. I can say without fear of contradiction, that I knew Scott better than any other White House correspondent or Washington reporter.

Yes, you've got the implication right, there isn't any other way to parse that.

Gannon's a team player. Of course he's implying a relationship with McClellan to smear his reputation (if he was lying about sex, surely he's lying about Bush!). It's comtemptuous.

California Supreme Court Helps Bend The Long Arc Of History Toward Justice

It's really a great day for California.

In a monumental victory for the gay rights movement, the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday in a ruling that would allow same-sex couples in the nation's biggest state to tie the knot.

Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3 in striking down the ban.

Outside the courthouse, gay marriage supporters cried and cheered as the news spread.

Jeanie Rizzo, one of the plaintiffs, called Pali Cooper, her partner of 19 years, and asked, "Pali, will you marry me?"

"This is a very historic day. This is just such freedom for us," Rizzo said. "This is a message that says all of us are entitled to human dignity."

If it were up to me, government would be completely out of the marriage business. They could stop penalizing single people for being single with tax incentives for married folks and return that savings to everyone broadly. And the restrictions on hospital visits and health care dependents and next of kin are frankly weird. But if you're going to bestow those benefits on married couples then you have to bestow them on gay couples. This is a basic civil right and nobody in our country should be treated like a second-class citizen.

There's going to be a "defense of marriage" constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would vacate this ruling and the court would not be able to change it. So there's a LOT of work to do to keep the momentum going. But Digby is right: this is a situation where the youth movement can make a difference in this state.

This is one state where the huge youth turnout could really make a tangible difference in real people's lives immediately. If they come out in the numbers we expect in November, I believe we will defeat this on the ballot, no matter how many reactionary wingnuts get excited about it.

It's fitting that in an election year where we are dealing head on with all these issues of race and sex that we're going to have a showdown on gay marriage in the most populous state in the union. The chances have never been greater to defeat the forces of bigotry and discrimination. It's a risk, but there will probably never be a better time to take it. Bring it on.

I also think this will help the entire Democratic ballot - that's right - in November in California. The Yacht Party will rue the day they pushed wedge issues like this. A good day all around.

Punk'd

Rudy Giuliani got thrashed yesterday on Meet the Press, and what was significant to me was that Tim Russert needed two or three other full hours to get to all of the subjects worthy of discussion to put Giuliani on the hot seat. This is a year out from the general election, and there's just too much out there on Rudy right now, so much that you might consider it a deliberate strategy to confuse everyone. I mean, Russert couldn't even get into the unbelievable dishonesty of Rudy's ads (of course, that's not what Russert does; he doesn't measure politicians up against the truth, he measures them up against their own statements). But what did get said was enough.

Russert prosecuted the famed prosecutor, enumerating one Giuliani scandal after another. All Rudy could do was giggle. He reminded me of that ancient clip in which Bobby Kennedy grilled some miscreant at a Senate hearing and the bad guy laughed at every question. Bobby finally said: "Are you going to tell us anything or just giggle? I thought only little girls giggled?." Sexist, yes (it was 1959).

But it destroyed the giggly witness.

That was Rudy yesterday. All giggles and deer-in-the-headlights terror.

And with good reason. There are no good (or any) answers to the questions Russert posed about "Driving Miss Judy," Giuliani and Associates' client list, Bernard Kerik, etc etc.

And Russert didn't even ask about the priest-rapist on Rudy's staff.

Like I said, there wasn't enough time.

And another scandal popped up DURING the show, when Rudy decided to alienate a full subset of the population.

Giuliani, who appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he did not believe homosexuality was aberrant. What is sinful are "the acts, not the orientation."

I know this is the position of the Catholic church, but let's get real; it's a dodge. It means that you are repulsed by gay people and consider their behavior to be sinful. It's like saying you don't have a problem with murderers, just the murder. Would Rudy admit to that very Christian position? Of course not, such a thing is only OK when hating the gay.

Further, it turns out that Giuliani's firm, which he still draws a salary from, was hired by the utility industry to lobby against the addition of a renewable energy standard in the Congressional federal energy bill. The ethically compromised nature of the campaign continues.

Oh Dear

Four men come out saying they, too, had sex with Larry Craig, or were subject to sexual advances from him.

This is just sad, and I'm starting to feel sorry for Craig now. Someone that closeted and that much in denial is living a tragic life.

BOISE, IDAHO - David Phillips. Mike Jones. Greg Ruth. Tom Russell.

Four gay men, willing to put their names in print, have come forward since news of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's guilty plea. Two said they had sex with Craig, one said he made a sexual advance and the fourth said he paid him unusual attention.

They are telling their stories now because they are offended by Craig's denials, including his now famous statement, "I am not gay, I never have been gay."

Sad.

Romney Accidentally Advertises On Gay.com

This story really isn't all that important, but reading on, I also learned that the "Join Team Mitt" banner ad wound up on FanFiction.net, a portal for fanboys to write homoerotic stories about their favorite fictional characters. Which inspired me to write this piece of fan fiction about Mitt Romney, informed by his accidentally advertising on Gay.com.

EXT. NEW HAMPSHIRE STREET - NIGHT

The Romney campaign bus stops, and Mitt and some staffers climb out.

MITT
Boy, what a long day. I could go for a Steve Tabernacle.

STAFFER 1
Steve Tabernacle, sir?

STAFFER 2 (whispering)
It's a male Mormon version of a Shirley Temple.

STAFFER 1 (whispering)
Wow, I'm going to have to get used to this.

Mitt looks up at the sign on the bar in front of them.

MITT
Hmm... "The Manhole." I like construction workers as much as the next guy, let's go in here!

STAFFER 1
No, Governor Romney...

Mitt meets a reveler at the door.

REVELER
Ooh, the serious look. I like it!

MITT
Well, I hope you'll choose me in January.

REVELER
Honey, I might choose you tonight!
-------
Good thing I'm not covered by the Writer's Guild, so I can bring that to you!

The Gay Card To Teh Rescue!

Ernie Fletcher is going to lose his governor's seat in Kentucky today. He's a hopelessly corrupt Republican, and Steve Beshear is a decent Democrat. The country is changing and they will not stand for a governor who has to pardon most of his top staff to keep them out of jail.

In attempting to save the election, Fletcher is returning to the last refuge of a scoundrel - calling Beshear a queer lover.

Someone in Kentucky has resorted to an almost certainly illegal campaign tactic in today's election for governor. A new robocall has gone out purporting to be from Fairness.org — the Web site of the Fairness Campaign, an actual gay rights organization in Kentucky — speaking with pride about the strong support of "the homosexual lobby" for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Steve Beshear.

"Beshear is receiving major support from out-of-state gay activists and has publicly committed to same-gender relationships," the man on the call says.

The Fairness Campaign has denied any part in the calls, and is urging people who have received the calls to report it to the authorities.

That is all they've got left. Republicans who have proven that they can't govern can only demagogue on hate. It's not going to work today. This is not only illegal, it's craven.

I Think Only O.J. Would Be A Worse Endorsement

Fred Thompson gathers the picketing soldiers' funerals vote.

Members of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church are urging Fred Thompson to support their stance on homosexuality — a position on which they say the Republican presidential candidate once "saw eye to eye" with them.

Thompson was hired for a mid-1980s legal case in Kansas on the recommendation of Margie Phelps, daughter of Westboro founder Fred Phelps.

The Topeka, Kan.-based church is now best known for protesting at soldiers' funerals, claiming their deaths are retribution for the nation's acceptance of homosexuality [...]

Church members released an open letter to Thompson this week, saying he had discussed his views on homosexuality with them while handling the case of a woman who had sued the state's Republican attorney general for sexual harassment.

"We know what your position used to be on the homosexual question — and it was wonderful, and we saw eye to eye," church members said in the letter to Thompson.

The Westboro Baptist Church is so out there on the fringe that Fox News hosts tell them they're going to hell. They're the group that right-wingers use as a punching bag to prove their "independence." The Thompson camp is trying to distance themselves as fast as they possibly can. But having Fred Phelps on your side is a stench that doesn't easily wash off.

UPDATE: I shouldn't let a "Fred!" post go by without this statement from today's Values Voters Summit:

On what he would do in his first 100 days in office: "I don't really know." But, he says, "I know what I would do the first hour. I would go in the Oval Office, close the door, and pray for the wisdom to know what was right, and the strength to do what is right."

Wait, couldn't he get started on that now? Does God wait to come up with his plan for you until after you secure the Electoral College?

Man, this guy is saving loads of money on the campaign trail on stress pills and policy papers. He has neither.

Embarrassment, The Sit-Down Interview

By the way, the most highly amusing moment of the Larry Craig/Matt Lauer pow-wow was when Suzanne Craig went all "I know Larry Craig's penis, I've partied with Larry Craig's penis, you are not Larry Craig's penis":

Suzanne Craig: I was feeling violated, because they came in here and brought this almost pornographic audio tape. And played it in our home. And I knew immediately it was not the truth. Because the description he gave of Larry in some areas that only I might know about were wrong, on three counts.

Jon Stewart caught this tonight too. What are the THREE counts? Is there that much to a penis that three elements could be misstated? Are we talking birth marks? Veins? Am I sicked out yet?

This has been a late-night blog. D-Day after dark! (Except, of course, this was on in prime time on NBC. But if Janet Jackson's nipple pops out, the horrors!)

Lightweight

I KNEW that the reasons Bill Richardson went ahead and stuck his foot in his mouth during the LOGO debate and claimed that homosexuality is a choice was because he likes the word choice. I don't think this is spin, I think this guy is lightweight enough to hear choice and think "choice is good, sure it's a choice!" That's the alibi of someone who has the intellectual capacity of Lenny from Of Mice And Men:

And, I always love the word 'choice.' I’m for freedom of choice, I have in my health care plan a choice where everybody can keep their health care plan. And so I always kind of feel it's a golden word, and I didn't think through what Melissa was asking me.

That health care plan, by the way, looks to me like it was designed by fairies. I want to know how someone can seem like such a lunkhead and yet be able to speak a common language in diplomacy and negotiations and extract real victories? I think it's because he has the ability to be personable in some way. I don't want this guy as Secretary of State at all because I don't think he has any fundamental defining philosophy about foreign policy. Envoy, maybe, since people around the world seem to like him, mainly because he says what they want to hear (he must be a very good flatterer). Nothing else.

Slammed Today

It's just not in the cards for bloggy goodness.

While I have a spare moment, let me give a tip o' the cap to former Sen. Alan Simpson for his exquisite article on gays int he military (I can't believe we're still having this conversation 16 years after it started. Everything old is new again). I wish I could excerpt it all, but here's a piece and you can go read the whole thing.

My thinking shifted when I read that the military was firing translators because they are gay. According to the Government Accountability Office, more than 300 language experts have been fired under "don't ask, don't tell," including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. This when even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently acknowledged the nation's "foreign language deficit" and how much our government needs Farsi and Arabic speakers. Is there a "straight" way to translate Arabic? Is there a "gay" Farsi? My God, we'd better start talking sense before it is too late. We need every able-bodied, smart patriot to help us win this war.

It seems like gay isn't always so gay, as discharges drop during times of war when the military needs all of those able bodies. But turning one willing soldier away is ridiculous at a time when the Army is broken.

Ask, Tell

The first Marine to be injured in Iraq just came out today, and only Pat Robertson, Tim Hardaway and Jerry Falwell would believe that this is a bad development.

Once a Marine, always a Marine. That pretty much sums up the life of retired Sgt. Eric Alva, who was sworn into the Marine Corps at 19, stationed in Somalia and Japan and lost his right leg when he stepped on a land mine on March 21, 2003, the first day of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

As the war's first injured soldier, Alva was an instant celebrity. He was on "Oprah." President Bush awarded him the Purple Heart. Donald Rumsfeld visited. And strangers in Alva's native San Antonio still insist on paying for his dinner at Chili's. Last fall Alva, 36, contacted the Human Rights Campaign, the gay rights group, and asked to be involved in its lobbying effort. Today he'll stand alongside Rep. Martin Meehan (D-Mass.) when he introduces a bill to repeal the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay, lesbian and bisexual military personnel.

There's a Q & A with Alva on the Washington Post's website, and he's deadly accurate with his comments.

Q: You come from a military family?

A: I come from a family of servicemen. My dad, Fidelis, is a Vietnam vet. My grandfather, also named Fidelis, was a World War II and Korean War veteran. I was named after them. My middle name is Fidelis. Fidelis means "always faithful."

Q: What does sexual orientation -- gay, straight, bisexual -- have to do with being a soldier? A Marine?

A: First, thanks for recognizing that I am a Marine. Second, to answer your question, I have tons and tons of friends that were in the military at the time who knew I was gay because I confided in them. Everybody had the same reaction: "What's the big deal?" . . . The respect was still there. Your job is what you're doing at its best. Your personal life, your private life, is something you do after work. What's funny is, when I was based in San Diego, Calif., people would go to a gay club and everyone would have a haircut like mine. They had their dog tags on. But come Monday morning, nobody talked about it, nobody dealt with it, everybody was back to work.

Despite the fact that a large segment of the population still can't deal with homosexuality, the truth is that it has no bearing on one's professional capabilities. At a time when the military is starving for fresh recruits, denying patriotic Americans to serve and also publicly disclose their sexual orientation is a relic of a backwards-thinking age. The American public actually supports repealing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and I'm of the same opinion. Anyone who thinks otherwise, who uses their bigoted beliefs to demean men and women who want to serve, doesn't support the troops. In 30 years, when this policy is overturned, people are going to scratch their heads and wonder why anybody cared about the sexual orientation of a military member.