Contrast & correction

Bob Marshall is a Delegate to Virginia's General Assembly, a Republican and a raging homophobe who places a higher value on irrational taboos than on the U.S. Constitution.

On Monday, as Congress lifted the ban on gays serving openly in our nation's armed forces, Marshall told Richmond TV station WWBT,

"If you've got ground troops -- and those are the ones who are most adamant about this -- disturbed because the person in the foxhole next to them may decide to sexually assault them under certain circumstances, that's going to distract them from an enemy across the field."

Marshall is drafting a bill to keep gays out of the Virginia National Guard. Like many other (so-called) "social conservatives" he casts himself as freedom's friend, but his own words expose him as a fearmongering fraud.

The evil of bigotry will exist until the last human breathes a last breath. Most bigots act out of mindless fear, often grounded in tradition or faith that seeks to impose personal beliefs on others.

Bigotry is antithetical to liberty.

Fortunately, a bright, libertarian and indisputably constitutional line was drawn this morning when Pres. Barack Obama signed the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Here are several excepts from the President's remarks:

"No longer will our country be denied the service of thousands of patriotic Americans who were forced to leave the military -- regardless of their skills, no matter their bravery or their zeal, no matter their years of exemplary performance -- because they happen to be gay. No longer will tens of thousands of Americans in uniform be asked to live a lie, or look over their shoulder, in order to serve the country that they love."
"There will never be a full accounting of the heroism demonstrated by gay Americans in service to this country; their service has been obscured in history. It's been lost to prejudices that have waned in our own lifetimes. But at every turn, every crossroads in our past, we know gay Americans fought just as hard, gave just as much to protect this nation and the ideals for which it stands.
"There can be little doubt there were gay soldiers who fought for American independence, who consecrated the ground at Gettysburg, who manned the trenches along the Western Front, who stormed the beaches of Iwo Jima. Their names are etched into the walls of our memorials. Their headstones dot the grounds at Arlington."
"I say to all Americans, gay or straight, who want nothing more than to defend this country in uniform: Your country needs you, your country wants you, and we will be honored to welcome you into the ranks of the finest military the world has ever known."
"For we are not a nation that says, 'don’t ask, don’t tell.' We are a nation that says, 'Out of many, we are one.' We are a nation that welcomes the service of every patriot. We are a nation that believes that all men and women are created equal.
"Those are the ideals that generations have fought for. Those are the ideals that we uphold today."

With that, we're a better nation today than we were yesterday. We're better because a law that flouted our founding principles is gone from the books. We're better because our military's code of honor has one less exception. We're better because we, as a nation, embrace the service and sacrifice of gay Americans, as gay Americans -- past, present and future.

We're better because bigotry lost this round.

It's about damned time.