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Chris Matthews On Hardball Runs Down Arguments On Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

02/02/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Chris Matthews discussed the potential repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He had Peter Sprigg from the Family Research Council, and Aubrey Sarvis from the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. Sprigg continually used a variety of studies which were not well supported, including changing a statement from fifteen percent to ten percent of one newspaper’s poll of their readers stating that they would be unwilling to serve with openly gay and lesbian soldiers. Sprigg went on to, basically, state that he believes that homosexuality is wrong and should be recriminalized. Of course, he admits that people do not choose to be gay or lesbian, but that they choose to engage in homosexual behaviors. What Sprigg admitted to is pure out bigotry at the end of this Hardball segment. Sarvis kept hammering Sprigg’s ideas and points as having no real basis, especially in the modern military.

Reader polls are practically worthless. All they show is that a percentage of the readership who have chosen to be part of a poll are for or against a particular issue. These are normally undertaken in order to make a point seem like it has validity, but it typically does not. What the poll that Sprigg continually harped about is a reader poll, and even if it was done of random readers, it is still a biased group in that it only shows the beliefs of a small group of people who are willing to subscribe to that particular magazine.

Sprigg has, however, undermined his and other’s arguments that homosexuality should be criminalize, and that LGBT rights be eliminated. By stating that people are innately attracted to individuals of the same-sex, he basically stated that this is genetic. If it is genetic, as Sprigg believes, then it falls within the same category of protection as racial, ethnic and sex protections.

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