Homosexuality trumps terror as a national threat

[Servicemembers Legal Defense Network]contends the records show that the military - at a time when it and U.S. intelligence agencies don't have enough Arabic speakers - is putting its anti-gay stance ahead of national security.

Between 1998 and 2004, the military discharged 20 Arabic and six Farsi speakers, according to Department of Defense data obtained by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military under a Freedom of Information Act request.

[...]

"The military is placing homophobia well ahead of national security," said Steve Ralls, spokesman for the [SLDN], a nonprofit group that advocates for the rights of gay military members. "It's rather appalling that in the weeks leading up to 9/11 messages were coming in, waiting to be translated ... and at the same time they were firing people who could've done that job."

But others, like Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, a conservative advocacy group that opposes gays serving in the military, said the discharged linguists never should have been accepted at the elite Defense Language Institute in Monterey in the first place.

Galveston Co. Daily News article

Boy, I guess! How could anyone possibly imagine that homosexuality doesn't affect your ability to translate?

Experts have identified the shortage of Arabic linguists as contributing to the government's failure to thwart the Sept. 11 attacks. The independent Sept. 11 commission made similar conclusions.

But you can't accept just anybody. Incompetents and probable spies, yes. Gays, no.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.