So the Republicans are three for three now. In each debate, the narrowed minded audience cheered or booed something to make the rest of the country cringe. I am just now sure why the GOP continues to cater to this small subset of their party while alienating everyone else.

During the GOP debate on Thursday night, host Megyn Kelly played a Youtube clip for a question to Rick Santorum. The clip was a question from Stephen Hill, a soldier in Iraq who, up until this week, had to “lie about who [he] was” in order to serve in the army. Hill asked if Santorum would reinstate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

After the clip with Hill was played, several members of the audience booed him. Someone could also be heard yelling “faggot.” Nice reaction for the party that “supports the troops.” Santorum response was not much better. “I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.

The fact they are making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to, and removing don’t ask don’t tell. I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military’s job is to do one thing: to defend our country… “

Kelly asked Santorum what he would do with soldiers like Stephen Hill. “What we are doing is playing social experimentation with our military right now. That’s tragic. I would just say that going forward we would reinstitute that policy if Rick Santorum was president. That policy would be re-instituted as far as people in, I would not throw them out because that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration.

But we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past. Which was- sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself whether you are heterosexual or homosexual. “

Although Santorum never denounced the audience’s absurd reaction, other GOP candidates did the next day. Jon Huntsman told Talking Points Memo that the booing was “unfortunate.” A Perry representative, also called the incident “very unfortunate.”

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About the author

Erin Chavez
Erin Whitney-Chavez has been writing professionally since 2009. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts from St. Bonaventure University and received a Master of Arts in mental-health counseling from Argosy University. Erin Whitney-Chavez is a licensed mental health counselor and has worked in the mental-health field for more than 10 years.

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