With Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck's recent comments comparing being gay to alcoholism raising eyebrows, another Republican candidate in Kentucky came out last week and seemed to compare homosexuality with obesity.
In an Oct. 12 debate hosted by KET's "Kentucky Tonight," KY-3 Republican candidate Todd Lally said he is firmly against repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT), based on his many years serving in the military. He further added that he doesn't want to "trample" on the rights" of "straight" soldiers:
LALLY: I'm a 22-year veteran, I've been to war three times. I know what it's like to live for a year in a tent with 10 men, and I can tell you, it poses a lot of problems for the military. It does absolutely nothing for military readiness, and two, it's a logistics issue. Now are we going to have dorms and facilities for men, gay men, women, gay women -- and at what cost to the taxpayer are we going to do that?
So we have only discharged only 13,000 people under Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It is a policy that works, and it has kept the troops very happy over the years, and I'm not going to sit there and trample on any troop's rights that is straight because this is not a place for this.
Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) said that he disagreed with Lally, noting he voted to repeal DADT as part of the recent Defense Authorization bill, which ultimately failed. "Adm. Mullen, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says it's an indefensible policy, it does not at all impact negatively our troops," he said. "As a matter of fact, it unfortunately prevents a lot of very very capable Americans who would perform valuable service to our military from serving. So I was proud to cast that vote."
Lally responded that being gay and being in the military is not the problem; the problem is "openly gay behavior."
"No, that's not what we're talking about," countered Yarmuth. "We're talking about just acknowledging your sexual orientation. It has nothing to do with behavior."
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The next day, Lally went on "The Joe Elliott Show" on 970 WGTK and further elaborated on his views on DADT, reiterating many of his comments from the debate but adding, "People say, well, you're discriminating, I'm like, the military has standards. We don't allow overweight people, we don't allow people that have certain medical issues. I mean, you don't go to the military to be an individual."
The Lally campaign did not respond to The Huffington Post's request for comment.
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