From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The provision would allow military commanders to repeal the ban. The repeal would permit gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.

It was adopted as an amendment to the annual Pentagon policy bill, which the House is expected to vote on Friday. The repeal would be allowed 60 days after a Pentagon report is completed on the ramifications of allowing openly gay service members, and military leaders certify that it would not be disruptive. The report is due by Dec. 1.

The House vote was 234 to 194, with 229 Democrats and 5 Republicans in favor, after an emotionally charged debate. Opposed were 168 Republicans and 26 Democrats.

So the House — or at least 229 Democrats and 5 Republicans in the House — has finally voted to support the troops — all of them — by ending the witchhunt we've come to know as "Don't Ask Don't Tell."  They join the Senate Armed Service Committee in voting the disastrous Clinton-era policy down.

In doing so they have prevailed over the admittedly compelling fantasies — er, arguments of the likes of The Family Research Council's Peter Sprigg, who warned that

homosexuals in the military are about 3x as likely to commit sexual assaults as heterosexuals are. [And the] most common type of homosexual assault [is] one in which the offender fondles or performs oral sex on a sleeping victim.

Um, sounds like the perfect victimless crime to me (oh, but you might want to put airquotes around "sleeping" — oldest trick in the book).

Seriously, though, is that all you got, FRC?  With George Rekers on your side you'd think you could come up with better gay fantasies — er, anti-gay arguments than that. 

The simple fact is, ending DADT does not end prosecution for sexual assault, which will, of course, apply to all troops, as well it should.  The repeal would certainly not create a special class — in fact, it will eliminate one.  But if it does lead to more free BJs for "sleeping" "straight" boys, well, life is rough, innit?

But seriously?  The fact that we have been debating with people whose best argument is rampant blowjobs — I mean, really earnestly debating our little hearts out with them — and losing up to now! — is precisely what's wrong with a system that lets one side rely more or less solely on rumors and lies while the other is left with the entire burden of principled debate.

The rancid end of this mode of public discourse is Fred Phelps and his so-called "church", who have been terrorizing the families of fallen soldiers at their funerals with bizarre hate-fueled "demonstrations" linking gay rights with God's wrath.  FRC is not a far cry from the Phelpses, but their fantasies of the homosexual agenda are a little more nuanced.

The debate rages on as to whether the Phelpses' free speech rights trump the rights of families of fallen soldiers to lay them to rest in peace.  The Globe reports that Mass. AG Martha Coakley has recently joined several AGs from around the country "in signing a legal brief supporting a Maryland man who sued members of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., after they protested at the funeral of his son..., who was killed in Iraq in 2006."

The danger of squelching Phelps, some argue, is that it sets a precedent for legitimate protests.  And, in fact, a lively grassroots  culture of Westboro counter-protests has taken root wherever the Phelpses pop up.  And while this is heartening somehow (check out the spirit of goodwill and community among these counterprotestors, for instance) the funeral protests are of a different magnitude and moral dimension. 

Like with the Phelpses, there's no way to reason with people in the Tea-Bagging GOP or organizations like FRC, who have no regard for reason, who traffic in conspiracies and wholesale lies, and whose only contribution to public debate is hate speech. 

Occasionally reason prevails, as it did in yesterday's House vote, but by the thinnest of margins.  Hate may not take the day today, but like the bindweed in the garden, we'll never eradicate it.  We can only hope to keep it from strangling out everything else with patience and constant labor. 

And always keep in mind:  our better natures are fragile, their blooms glorious, but fleeting.