Nothing ‘strong’ about ‘Strong’ ad

Campaign ads don’t necessarily have a history of being flattering to minorities, but Rick Perry’s recent “Strong” ad takes the gay-bashing cake. Within this ad, Perry takes the opportunity to broadcast his Christian righteousness, complain about our country’s necessary separation of church and state and attempt to assert that the absence of mandatory prayer in public schools is worse than any persecution LGBT people face.

 The ad has gone viral online, and it’s easy to see why — the implicit homophobia cannot be denied, and those who are looking out for the LGBT community are appalled.

Saying that something’s wrong with the country when gays can serve openly in the military but children “can’t pray openly in schools” is completely facetious. After all, if your kids want to pray in a public school, it’s unlikely that anyone will stop them, and a reasonable expression of Christianity is not against the law. A child’s expression of their religious identity in school isn’t banned, just as a soldier’s expression of their queer identity shouldn’t be.

This ad, better than any other, displays all of the reasons Rick Perry would make a terrible president, the biggest of which is his privilege-rooted bigotry. Apparently the thought that his status is not a right but a privilege afforded to him as a white, heterosexual, Christian man has not occurred to him.

His clear ignorance is probably the second biggest reason that the only “strong” aspect of Perry’s presidency would be the strength of his wrecking ball of a platform as it demolishes every merit America has left.

Perry is right: There is a problem in this country. But it’s not that LGBT folks can serve openly in our military. It’s the fact that people like Perry advocate an un-American idea of institutionalized religion and believe that their identity deserves more respect than the identities of others.

Melanie Williams welcomes comments at mwilliams@mndaily.com.