Gays in the Military

I’ve just read an extraordinary series of letters. Two days ago Salon.com ran an article by David Horowitz called Why Gays Shouldn’t Serve. Horowitz is a former member of the New Left who turned conservative a while back, and I think Salon hired him as a columnist in order to provide some counterpoint to its liberal views.

I find Horowitz’s columns infuriating. It’s not just his views, but his tone. I think he’s snide, mean-spirited, and incredibly childish. He’s also a lazy thinker — the substance of his argument is usually peppered with clichés and old chestnuts. He mischaracterizes the people who disagree with his views, for example, painting them all out to be angry, unthinking, P.C. zealots; he focuses on the most extreme examples, never acknowledging that rational people out there might disagree with him. (It’s certainly easy to make an argument when you perpetuate the fiction that no rational person would disagree with you.) Finally, he seems unable to write too many columns without referring to himself and the accomplisments of which he’s apparently proud. He injects too much of his ego into his writing. Journalism is supposed to be about the stories, not about those who write them.

In short, Horowitz is one of the most obnoxious writers I’ve ever read. I don’t know if he’s completely unaware of his obnoxiousness, or if he cultivates it in order to gain fame and exposure. Either way it’s pathetic.

Anyway, his column on Monday about gays in the military was typically infuriating. But today, Salon printed a plethora of letters from people who disagree with him, including some from members of the U.S. military. I wanted to quote one of them here, but I couldn’t single any of them out. They’re all so excellent.

I love, love, love it when people can express disagreement through calm, logical argument. It makes my spine and my brain tingle. Calm argument is classy. Logical argument is elegant. The clarity that calm logic can bring to an issue, the light it can shine, the power it has to excavate our minds and unearth all the old moldy assumptions we have about things — in short, the truth that it can bring into the world — well, that can only be good for human society. And that’s the case no matter what side of an issue you’re on.

I love it, I love it, I love it when that happens. If you have a chance, please read the column and the many responses — each of them. I found the experience incredibly enriching.