Ann Coulter Plumbs New Depths

by Shaker BrianWS

[Trigger warning for homophobia, rape culture narratives.]

I know I shouldn't expect much from Ann Coulter, and in all honesty, I don't. But I read anyway, because obsessively reading the garbage heaps that regularly get published by conservative commentators is what I do.

Usually I get through an Ann Coulter opinion piece with something close to the following formula – laugh once from either an inoffensive joke or some clever wordplay, agree with her once (usually on a matter of indisputable fact that cannot be poisoned even by her dishonesty or bullshit worldview), and then spend the rest of the piece holding my hands tightly around the top of my head to make sure that just in case my eyeballs pop out of my face from rolling them too much, I'll be able to catch them and they won't dirty my couch.

But this one – this one seems low, even for her. She managed to avoid the single laugh and the single point of agreement that she and I usually share once a week over coffee.

I've just been doing this the entire time I've been reading this pile of trash.


Coulter's argument can be boiled down to this: Marines don't want to fight with gays, and who gives a shit about what anyone else wants?

From there on out, the piece devolves into nothing but a long string of homophobic "jokes" that aren't even clever to begin with. Let's check out a "Greatest Hits" of sorts.

The rest of us shouldn't get to vote on gays in the military any more than we get to vote on the choreography of "Chicago."

Get it? The military is full of straight dudez, so who cares what the gays want! Hey queers – leave our straight men to do the manly shit like fighting, and we'll leave you to do the gay shit like dancing and choreography. Know your place!

Military combat is a very specialized field comparable to nothing in civilian life. There has to be a special bond among warriors -- and only one kind of bond.

Ha! LOL! "And only one kind of bond." This one is pretty tired, and I'm a little disappointed in Coulter for taking such an easy way out, because we all know that if we let predatory gays (who, as an aside, we know only care about having lots and LOTS of sex and that every gay man thinks every straight man is HOT and loses all control around them! You should see me out at a bar on a Friday night, she's totes right!) into the military, then all of the sudden everyone will just be fucking in the barracks instead of fighting wars for us. (As another aside, I think this might actually be good military policy – less war, more gay fucking in the barracks. Pretty much eliminates civilian casualties in wars of choice, eh?) But back to the point – they'll be "bonding" with their raging, uncontrollable hard-ons! Too easy, Ann. Oh, and still wrong.

Racial prejudice is not the same thing as sexual attraction, so please stop telling us this is just like integrating blacks in the military.

Well, Coulter is right about one thing there: Racial prejudice is not the same thing as sexual attraction – mostly because they're two totally different things. One demerit point for not even making sense. Hating baseball is not the same thing as liking ballpark hot dogs. There, I've found new logic, thanks to this new example. But then again, I'm not even sure that I made a point about the merits of either baseball or ballpark hot dogs, but I suppose I made as much sense as she did, so wevs, I won't waste any more time on this one. I think we all know what the point she was TRYING to make was – and that's still wrong anyway.

A Military Times survey in 2005 found that nearly half of all women in the military claim to have been the victim of sexual harassment -- ludicrously more than women in civilian life.

Not sure where this point really comes in or what purpose it is supposed to serve in her argument, but she gets to call women liars, and I believe that it is in the Handbook on Conservative Opinion Pieces that you must call women liars, power-hungry harpies, or sluts at least once or it won't get published – but is it really that "ludicrous" to believe that an institution that values macho attitudes, hyper-masculinity, and male bravado would produce such results? Color me less than shocked.

Only 15 percent of gays currently serving said they would want their units to know they're gay.

Gee, I wonder why? See the commentary directly above this.

Also, 2 percent of gays currently serving giggled when asked about their "unit," which is down from 5 percent from last year.

Oh my aching sides! Gay men only think about their dicks, amirite?!

After talking about the number of discharges for "homosexuality," Coulter concocts a wonderful storyline about how it is likely happening…

So gays and girls can join the military, get taxpayers to foot the bill for their education and then, when it comes time to serve, announce that they're gay or pregnant and receive an honorable discharge. Indeed, there's no proof that all the discharges for homosexuality involve actual homosexuals.

Yep, spot-on again. All of these folks getting discharged like Lt. Dan Choi, Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, and Sgt. Jene Newsome, among countless others, could really possibly be just heterosexual people gaming the system.

Which leads me to…

Maybe we could have an all-gay service! They'd be allowed to wear camouflage neckerchiefs (a la Paul Lynde) and camo capri pants. To avoid any sexual harassment claims, they'd have to have their own barrack, which we could outfit with a dance club, a cosmo bar and a counseling center called "The Awkward Place." Their band would mostly play show tunes, and soldiers captured by the enemy would be taught to reveal only their name, rank and seasonal color analysis ("I am Private First Class Jeffrey Smith and I'm a 'winter.'")

There are too many bullshit stereotypes to even begin to break down, but I'm sure they don't all need to be pointed out to Shakers.

What angers me the most about her essentially wrapping up this entire column with this heap of garbage is that it's clear that this is all one big joke to her. The idea that there is an epidemic of straight people playing gay so they can lose their jobs and go to college is absurd, as are all of her other ideas.

The reality is that this incredibly discriminatory policy affects real people with real lives doing their real jobs. There's no excuse for this policy still being in place, and to treat it as an opportunity to trot out stereotypes about gays is as offensive as it is a waste of written words.

These are real people who are being affected by this – people who are willing to die for their country, and she's reduced their bravery and the discrimination they face to "jokes" about dance clubs, cosmo bars, and show tunes. If I were going to build a scale of bravery, honor, and integrity, I would have to think that being willing to die for your country as a job must rate at least one rung higher than getting paid to make gay bar jokes, right? And it's low, even for Coulter, to treat every brave LGBT person who has been discharged, and those willing to join and fight for their country, as little more than something comparable to the punchline of a Will & Grace episode.

[Commenting Guidelines: If you can't comment without invoking Coulter's appearance, questioning her gender, or centering her womanhood, don't bother commenting. Comments which fail to adhere to these guidelines will be deleted.]