The courageous one would be Brian Muller, a gay Arkansas native, discharged from duties disarming bombs in Afghanistan after his sexual orientation was revealed, as reported in today’s Democrat-Gazette.

You supply the adjectives for U.S. Sens. Lame Duck Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor. I’d asked them for positions on repeal of the ban on gay military service last week. Lincoln repeated the same ringing support for the concept that she’d given shortly before joining Pryor as the only two Democrats joining a filibuster against repeal. She still won’t say she’ll vote for repeal no matter what.

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Pryor, who dodged my question entirely, now tells the Democrat-Gazette that he opposes repeal; that he thinks homosexuality is a sin and that he has reservations about housing gay troops with straight troops (as if this hasn’t occurred forever). He’s been fully indoctrinated by the Religious Right’s false arguments — that military chaplains won’t be able to continue to preach morally justifiable discrimination; that gays are just lying in wait to assault straight soldiers if only given the cover of open service. Pryor, at his core, is a Religious Righter, so I get it (though why he’s fiddled around in coming out until now, I don’t know). But what possible reason is there for Lincoln to be hesitant to do right, for once, without the wobble? Take a cue from Brian Muller and woman up, senator.

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