Bradley Manning's Sexual Orientation Shouldn't Be An Issue

The issue here is WHY was the soldier exposed to SO MUCH information in the first place being that his clearance was not sufficient enough. Sources have told The Gay Report that the higher ups at The Pentagon knew that Manning was sitting on the leaked info and did nothing to stop it. So the question begs, if the information was very vital to national security why didn't they stop Manning BEFORE he leaked the info to Wikileaks.

The other point to be made is that the information that was leaked has not compromised the so called "war on terror" ...  merely it just embarrassed the State Department and some officials. This is the framework that we can go upon and basically put most of the blame on the Pentagon and State Department.

Using his sexual orientation as a defense is not the proper format. Already you have anti-gay bigots making comments about how homosexuals cannot be trusted in the military and that homosexual military activists are defending a 'treasonous homosexual soldier.' There is no absolute reason for pointing out that Manning is gay. Being gay didn't make him leak the cables, that is just non-sense. There are thousands of gay and lesbian service members proudly serving their country without any problem, and now with DADT gone, they can do so openly. Sure DADT did place a lot of unnecessary pressure on our gay soldiers, but so does the general military life. Being gone away from home, months at a time, missing Christmas, barbecues, and children's birthdays, can and does put a lot of strain on our soldiers regardless of orientation. Strain is part of a soldier's life. They are trained to cope with it, and of course they are going to witness horrible atrocities that you and I are never going to see. Being in the military is a completely different world. Had this scenario, lets say, played in the private sector like Wall Street, and being gay had placed some undue stress on Manning, then yes, maybe this could be used as evidence that certain stresses have indeed caused Manning's judgement to be impaired.

But Manning's real case is different. It is different in one sense that it can turn politically ugly against gay soldiers. If this "gay defense" continues in its current trajectory, you bet that anti-gay forces would use this case as a trophy and trojan horse against open service or even not allowing gays to serve at all in the military, closeted or not. And being that almost all of the GOP candidates to the White House (except Paul, Huntsman, Karger, Johnson) all want to ban open service if elected, we cannot afford to give these bigots any ammo or pedestal on which to stand on.

Come on people. Lets stick to the REAL facts of the case. Let's not be distracted by these tactics that simply will backfire against the LGBT community.

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