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| Photo: Kelsey Kremer/Iowa State Daily |
Barry Snell of Iowa State Daily got Ron Paul all to himself for a half-hour on the ride to the airport,
so he asked Paul (among other things) about gay rights.
Since Iowa State has a thriving homosexual community, I asked how gays fit into Paul's philosophy of freedom. The congressman cringed at the question and shook his head in frustration.
"You know I just, I don't think of people in little groups like that. I don't think of people as ‘gay' here and ‘black people' there, or ‘women' over here...Everybody is an individual person and everybody has the same rights as anyone else. The government has no business in your private life, you know, so if one person is allowed to do something so should everyone else. The whole gay marriage issue is a private affair and the federal government has no say."
With the recent death of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," I suggested to Congressman Paul that the issue isn't likely to go away any time soon, and asked how he would address gays in the military as president.
"Well, like I said, everybody has the same rights as everybody else, so homosexuals in the military isn't a problem. It's only if they're doing things they shouldn't be, if they're disruptive. But there's ... men and women getting into trouble with each other too. And there's a lot more heterosexuals in the military, so logically they're causing more trouble than gays. So yes, you just have the same rules for everybody and treat them all the same." Paul voted for the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
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