After President Obama pledged to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) in tonight’s State of the Union address, Senator John McCain issued his own statement calling the commitment to repeal the policy a mistake.

“In his State of the Union address, President Obama asked Congress to repeal the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.  I am immensely proud of, and thankful for, every American who wears the uniform of our country, especially at a time of war, and I believe it would be a mistake to repeal the policy.

“This successful policy has been in effect for over fifteen years, and it is well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels.  We have the best trained, best equipped, and most professional force in the history of our country, and the men and women in uniform are performing heroically in two wars.  At a time when our Armed Forces are fighting and sacrificing on the battlefield, now is not the time to abandon the policy.”

Senator, if our military is indeed the most “professional force in the history of our country,” don’t you think they can handle serving along side out gay and lesbian soldiers? It should be a non-issue. Or are you simply allowing your homophobia to put our armed forces and the security of this nation at risk?

Late yesterday the Senate overwhelming passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act by a margin of 63-28, despite objections from many Republicans, including former presidential nominee Senator John McCain. The legislation passed as an amendment to what many consider a must-pass Department of Defense authorization bill. And therein lies the rub. While President Obama supports hate crimes legislation, he may veto the bill because of wasteful spending.

…Obama has told Congress he will veto the defense bill if it includes more money for an F-22 fighter program he is trying to terminate. The House in April passed a similar hate crimes bill, but did it as independent legislation not tied to a larger bill.

Five Republicans voted for it, zero Democrats voted against it.  Full roll call of vote courtesy of Tips-Q:

In an interview with Air America’s Ana Marie Cox, Senator John McCain  re-affirmed his support for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT). When Cox compared DADT to Truman’s forced de-segregation of the armed forces as a civil rights issue, a testy John McCain replied: “Well, you are entitled to your opinion. But I don’t think so.”

An excerpt from the interview below:

The full interview will air on Saturday 9am. An audio clip is available on the Air America website.

A new nationwide study examining the consumption of internet pornography revealed some pretty interesting tidbits, especially when viewed through the prism of faith and politics. Among the conclusions reached by the study, as reported by NewScientist…

The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000. “The differences here are not so stark,” Edelman says.

Perhaps getting out of the magical underwear is not as difficult as it appears…

Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year’s presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama.

What’s the deal Hawaii and Florida? You can operate the computer but not the ballot box?

Church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays – a 1% increase in a postal code’s religious attendance was associated with a 0.1% drop in subscriptions that day. However, expenditures on other days of the week brought them in line with the rest of the country, Edelman finds.

Less guilt, Monday through Saturday I guess…

Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don’t explicitly restrict gay marriage.

States where a majority of residents agreed with the statement “I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage,” bought 3.6 more subscriptions per thousand people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference emerged for the statement “AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behaviour.”

Oh the hypocrisy. I wonder how many of those 11% are closeted, homosexual homophobe? Or perhaps like anyone who is repressed, they want what they aren’t supposed to have all the more…