Georgia’s senior senator Saxby Chambliss has always been a special member of the U.S. Senate — special in the sense of those special education classes offered at most public schools.
That Chambliss specialness was on display this week at a hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee into the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” rule involving gay personnel who want to serve in the military. Chambliss theorized that repealing DADT would result in “alcohol use, adultery, fraternization, and body art” in the military.
Chambliss added that the military, in his informed opinion:
“must maintain policies that exclude persons whose presence in the armed forces would create unacceptable risk to the armed forces’ high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion.”
“In my opinion,” he said, “the presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would very likely create an unacceptable risk to those high standards.”
Chambliss, of course, avoided military service during the Vietnam era of the 1960s because of what he later described as a “bum knee.” Had he actually served in the military, he might have learned that there are, in fact, quite a few heterosexually oriented soldiers who drink, engage in adulterous sexual acts, and get tattoos.
Our “special” senator really should get in a car and drive around a military base like Fort Benning or Fort Stewart. He would see, if he cared to look, that these bases are surrounded by dozens if not hundreds of bars, beer joints, massage parlors and tattoo parlors.
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