You have to hand it to Sen. Sam Brownback (R-12th century), I suppose. Too many Republicans couch their hatred and bigotry in the flowery rhetoric of Consevative Christian dogma. Not Brownback. Nope, he’s very up-front about his hatred and bigotry. In fact, he flaunts it, unvarnished and uncamouflaged. His comments in defense of Marine Corps (and DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener) Gen. Peter Pace is a perfect example of this. Most reasonable people found Pace’s comment to be highly offensive and wholly inappropriate from a senior officer charged with implementing policy, not formulating it.
Brownback, however, found nothing at all inappropriate about Pace’s opinionizing. In fact, he’s lauding Pace “for maintaining a personal commitment to moral principles.” For some folks, it seems that hating, discriminating against, and marginalizing those whose lifestyles you disapprove is laudable and eminently reasonable state of affairs. That Gen. Pace, a man charged with the protection of ALL Americans would see fit to air his hateful, inappropriate opinions, and that Sen. Brownback would view this as perfectly acceptable and admirable behavior is detestable.
Should he somehow be elected President (hey, it’s not like a Republican hasn’t stolen an election in recent history), you can anticipate that Sam Brownback will be heavily invested in trying to legislate this country back to the moral equivalent of Pleasantville, where never is heard a discouraging word, and the queers are neither seen nor heard from all day.
Sam Brownback is just about the most dangerous sort of Republican imaginable: an intelligent, persuasive, moralistic bigot who knows how to package himself as a seemingly reasonable, middle-of-the-road Conservative. What’s even more frightening is that he’s likely to garner a lot of support. Maybe not enough to get elected, but certainly enough to gain some attention and leave him feeling as if his moral crusade might just have legs.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
