Columbia University still has Ahmadinejad coming for dinner. In fact, Hitler would be welcome there. If you haven’t seen the video, here it is:
The Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) is not welcome on Columbia’s campus, however. They have not been welcome there since the 1960s. A majority of students said it would be ok if the ROTC returned to campus, but the faculty nixed the idea and Columbia President Lee Bollinger sided against the popular will of the students.
It appears the military is just to hard on homosexuals:
Apparently Bollinger and other left-wingers on the faculty can’t stand the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy concerning homosexuals. Yet this policy, devised and introduced by the Clinton administration, respects the privacy of homosexual soldiers on the condition that they aren’t open or flagrant about being gay. The objective of the policy is to maintain morale in the barracks.
Having served in the military, both on land and at sea, I can understand the desire to not have flagrant, militant gays in your berthing areas. It would make a majority of the men uncomfortable. That doesn’t mean they are gay bashers or homophobes. When I was in the Navy, there were guys who I knew were gay. Everyone knew they were gay. They just were not up in your face with it and everyone got along fine. In my opinion, it is just asking folks to act like they have some common sense. It goes along the same lines as not being a militant white, black, Hispanic or militant anything. Just act like you have some sense and try to get along in cramped quarters.
Getting back to Columbia’s ban on the ROTC and Ahmadinejad’s speech, Dinesh D’Souza points out that Iran’s policies toward homosexuality are a bit more intolerant than the ROTC’s:
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| An example of Iran’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. |
Iran’s policies toward homosexuals are–shall we say–somewhat more stringent than those of the U.S. military. I visited the website of Human Rights Watch where the country’s sorry record is pretty well laid out. A few months ago, to take a random example, the Iranian police raided a home where men were allegedly dressed up as women. The men were accused of homosexuality, detained without a lawyer, and beaten. Perhaps they should consider themselves lucky: in the past Iran has not hesitated to execute homosexuals. Last November two men were strung up in northern Iran for engaging in homosexual acts. (Lesbianism is apparently punished not by death but by public whipping.)
If the faculty of Columbia can overlook Iran’s abuse of homosexuals, why can’t they tolerate a program that tolerates them? It’s obvious. The left holds the military in more contempt than the dictators of the worst human rights abusers in history. Tell me again the left supports the troops.
By the way, Ahmadinejad’s handlers never took Ground Zero off his schedule. Don’t be surprised if he shows up there without NYPD sanction.
