Conservative senators vs Cobb County

There's good news and bad news. First the bad.

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), one of the most ignorant, repugnant, reactionary senators on the right, is now making a public display of his homophobia -- only he doesn't seem to realize it, since he lives in the past and thinks everyone else thinks as he does.

Not so. In a 2006 poll of service members who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, 73% said they were comfortable with gays and lesbians.

Nevertheless, on American Family Association radio, speaking about repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Inhofe said this (quoted by Jason Linkins on Huffington Post):

You have women, men, then you have a third group to deal with, and they're not equipped to do that. And you know -- you hear the stories all the time. A military guy -- I happen to be Army, and Army and Marines always feel that when we're out there, we're not doing it for the flag or the country; we're doing it for the guy in the next foxhole. And that would dramatically change that.

Senator, could you please tell us what equipment is needed to deal with gay soldiers? Steel jock straps? Armor-lined undershorts? Mace spray? Don't flatter yourself.

Linkins then raises the cogent question: If our heterosexual soldiers are so scared of battlefield bonding with the gay guy in the next foxhole that they would go into "gay panic" and desert their comrades, which are the ones that should be discharged?

Now the good news.

Jay Bookman, in today's AJC, reminds us of 1993 when the good folks in Cobb County were so opposed to anything gay that the Cobb County Commission passed a resolution stating that "the gay lifestyle" was "incompatible with the standards to which this community subscribes" and thus had no place in Cobb County. [Sidebar: In response, the mayor of Decatur issued an invitation to Cobb County gay people to move to Decatur, which would welcome them.]

The provocation for this self-righteous piece of county business? The Theatre in the Square in Marietta had just had a very successful run with the play, "Lips Together, Teeth Apart." It's offense? The play takes place in the home of a man who had recently died from AIDS, and the talk among his straight family and friends who have gathered naturally includes the devastating disease and its effects on society. But there is not even one gay character on stage during the play. But, you know, you start allowing such things to be talked about and . . . it could spread and infects us all, I guess.

They didn't stop with the resolution. They also cut off funding for all local arts groups lest any tax payer money should be used to support something that offended "community standards."

Now 17 years later, "Avenue Q" (with a happy, very accepting gay theme) has just had a successful run at the Cobb Energy Center's auditorium. A few years ago, Theatre in the Square also mounted a production of "Take Me Out," which includes an openly gay baseball player and a shower scene with full frontal male nudity on stage. And not a ripple of protest.

Changed times, different County Commissioners. Cobb County grew up.

But Inhofe? I don't think there's any hope for Inhofe changing. Sometimes, with some of these homophobic troglodytes, you just have to wait until they . . . Well, let's just say, "until the demographics no longer include them."

Ralph