News
2007-02-08
Congressman
skewers U.S. policy with "platoon of lesbians" remark
A New York
congressman on Wednesday jokingly suggested the Bush
administration may fear a ''platoon of lesbians'' more
A New York
congressman on Wednesday jokingly suggested the Bush
administration may fear a ''platoon of lesbians'' more than
terrorists in Baghdad, given the military's resistance
to letting gays serve openly.
Rep. Gary
Ackerman's criticism of Pentagon policy came as Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice testified before the House Foreign
Affairs Committee. Ackerman, a New York City Democrat,
complained to Rice that the military had fired Arabic
and Farsi translators after learning the translators
were gay.
''For some
reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than
they are against terrorists. They're very brave with
the terrorists, and if the terrorists ever got ahold
of this information, they'd get a platoon of lesbians
to chase us out of Baghdad,'' said Ackerman, prompting
laughter in the hearing room.
The lawmaker, who
in 2002 voted for the invasion of Iraq but is now a
fierce opponent of the war, made one other crack too, this
time in reference to the Bush administration's
opposition to same-sex marriage.
Ackerman
suggested the State Department could hire dozens of
outed—and ousted—former military
translators.
''Can we marry up
these two—or maybe that's not the right word.... Can
we have some kind of union of those two issues?''
Ackerman asked, prompting a fresh outburst of
laughter.
Rice, in
diplomatic fashion, played it cool.
''Congressman,
I'm not aware of the availability of people, but I will
certainly look,'' she said, adding that her department has
quadrupled the number of employees in critical
languages.
Officials with
the national gay rights group Human Rights Campaig,
said Ackerman was right to criticize the military's policy
of ''don't ask, don't tell'' concerning gays.
''It is clear the
congressman was underscoring the ridiculousness of the
'don't ask, don't tell' policy and how it's hurting our
efforts to fight the war on terror,'' said HRC
spokesman Luis Vizcaino. (AP)
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