– I was shocked to see a report on CBN/700 Club about a friendship that has developed b/t a Glen Stanton, a Focus on the Family rep, and John Corvino, a gay activist. CBN has been broadcasting since 1961, and I don’t think during all of that time it has ever portrayed a gay man in a positive light. On CBN, the “ex-gays” get treated like real people, the gays are presented as caricatures. But this report broke that trend. And at the end of the piece, Tim Robertson (who is being groomed to replace his dad, pursuant to the apparently widespread Christian practice of nepotism), makes a plea for a renewed commitment to civil debate and an end to demonization. Granted, Tim Robertson is not exactly young, but I think he does bring with him generational change.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH-EYHWVejk

– The AFA website has a regular feature called the Millennial Perspective, presented by Elijah Friedeman. I give some credit to AFA, because they allow a bona fide Millennial to speak, not some 35-year old “youth pastor” purporting to speak on behalf of youth. Anyway, today’s video concerned DADT. I was bracing myself for a junior version of Bryan Fischer. But to my amazement, Elijah chose instead to focus on a recent piece in the New York Times wedding pages, in which a recently married couple recounted how they met and became engaged while still married to other people. The young man makes the point that Christians focus an inordinate amount of time and energy on things like DADT, when the real threat to marriage comes from heterosexual attitudes and conduct such as that exhibited by this couple.

Whether he intended it or not, this clearly was a hard smack on the nose of Bryan Fischer, who spends 70-80 percent of his time worrying about homosexuals, and has very little to say about the 96% of the world that is heterosexual. It was a very odd experience, hearing sane and reasonable arguments on the AFA website and agreeing with them. The sooner the Millennials take over the world, the better off we all will be.

http://www.afa.net/Radio/show.aspx?id=2147491277&tab=video&video=2147501366

– The most important issue in the military is military-preparedness, not social engineering. If this move doesn’t harm military-preparedness–and I know that a study or three suggests that–then I’m fine with it. I’m not convinced one way or the other on that point; I could see arguments both ways. My concern is that in our haste toward somebody’s definition of “equality”, we lose sight of what the military is all about: defending American interests.

– I find it terribly ironic that the very liberals who have rushed to overturn DADT were ones who 15+ years ago were excited about it, and conservatives now who think it’s a jolly good idea hated it 15+ years ago. I knew of few conservatives besides myself who agreed with the policy then. I did think–and still do–that if we held to the letter of the law on it on DADT, it represented a pretty reasonable compromise position: allow homosexuals to serve, but don’t create some problem in the foxholes. Again, if it doesn’t cause such a problem, then I’m fine with changing it. But all of this derision directed toward DADT on the part of liberals amuses the heck out of me, as does all the love conservatives seem to have for it.

– Oh, and AFA has a credibility factor of ZERO as long as this clown Bryan Fischer writes anything for them.

“The DADT debate was notable for unsupported claims (gay soldiers will be abusing the helpless straight soldiers more)”

Also notable was how the real harms DADT caused gay service members were ignored. Aside from constantly having to hide who they may be in a relationship with, they face a dilemma on who to list as emergency contact or surviving beneficiary (very significant decisions for soldiers shipping off to war). Instead DADT supporters portrayed gay soldiers as people who simply wanted to”flaunt” their sexuality.

“The DADT debate was notable for unsupported claims (gay soldiers will be abusing the helpless straight soldiers more)”

Also notable was how the real harms DADT caused gay service members were ignored. Aside from constantly having to hide who they may be in a relationship with, they face a dilemma on who to list as emergency contact or surviving beneficiary (very significant decisions for soldiers shipping off to war). Instead DADT supporters portrayed gay soldiers as people who simply wanted to”flaunt” their sexuality.