Fox News/Google GOP Debate

Last week's CNN/Tea Party sponsored GOP debate was barf-inducing because of the audience's blood-thirsty reactions ("Yeah" shouted out to "Should we just let someone without health insurance die?" And cheering for Gov. Perry's record of having presided over 234 executions.).

Last night's Fox News/Google GOP sponsored debate had its moment too, when some in the audience lustily booed a questioner: a gay soldier speaking from Iraq and asking about DADT, which ended two days before. Prior to that, they could not have shown his face or used his name; but last night they did both. AND this Fox News audience booed.

Rick Santorum, who was asked the question, has a problem with homosexuality. It makes him crazy. His infamous remark from years back when DADT was being debated in Congress still follows him -- he said that accepting homosexuality would lead to having to accept "man on dog sex." Last night he added fuel to the fire.

1. He said allowing gay soldiers to be open about who they are "is a special privilege." Yeah, a special privilege that everyone else has had all along -- the freedom to talk about their partners or to display pictures of the celebrity girl they desire. It was ok to have "cheesecake" pinup photos in your locker; but not "beefcake" photos. That could get you beat up, or discharged. So, yeah, special privilege, indeed.

News Flash to Rick Santorum: Being allowed to behave just like everybody else is not a special privilege.

2. He said removing DADT is trying to inject social policy into the military. And just what, please, was DADT itself, if not a policy controlling the social life of gay military people? Isn't that a "social policy?" A repressive, discriminatory social policy? So now we have an inclusive, non-discriminatory policy. You have a problem with non-discrimination, Rick?

3. He said what we're doing now is "social experimentation." For many years now, dozens of other nations have allowed gay men and women to serve openly in the military with zero problems of any significance. The "experiment" has been done, and the answer is clear.

4. He said that as President he would re-institute DADT. Rick's staff needs to sit him down and explain to him that (1) the courts have said it is unconstitutional; and (2) Congress actually voted to repeal it, and President Obama signed it into law. "President" Santorum cannot simply reinstitute it.

5. He wants to go back to when "sex was not an issue" in the military. Please tell us, Mr. Homophobe: When was that? You have it exactly backward. Repealing DADT is supposed to make sex not be an issue. No longer blackmail. No longer a conflict between being yourself and risking you whole career. Rick wants it to be out of sight, so it can be out of his mind.

Santorum's problem is that he is so uncomfortable with the idea of two men having sex that he just wants it to go away, don't make him think about it. He wants the whole military to deny that it exists. To deny that gay people exist, period; not just the sex part. Because to him, it's only about sex. Not about who these individuals are as people, not about authentic identity and freedom to be who you are. It's all just (snicker, snicker) about two men 'doing it,' and he can't get it out of his mind. It's so tantalizing . . . . er, I mean, disgusting. It even makes him think about "man on dog sex."

Please, folks. Let's re-institute a social policy affecting millions so Rick Santorum isn't tormented by sexual thoughts that make him anxious.

Such is the immaturity and twisted mind of a candidate for President of the United States. And then there were those in the audience who booed a gay, active-duty soldier speaking from Iraq.

This is a sick sick party.

Ralph