Ignorance in the letters to the Marine Corps Gazette: He should remember when Catholics suffered discrimination

Col. Paul Frapollo, USMC (Ret.) writes to the Marine Corps Gazette (Feb. 2012 issue)
to bemoan openly gay people being allowed to serve in the military. "Now that
Congress has decreed that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders can serve,
I predict that political correctness, carried to these extremes, will
ultimately severely weaken our combat capabilities."

He continues that "our country was founded as a
Christian nation," and adds that he is especially troubled because, he says, "I
am a Catholic." As such, he writes, he could not serve alongside open
homosexuals. 

It seems to be that he wants to nail the door shut
after he made it in. There was a long period in American history when Catholics
were not regarded as Christians, and in fact were discriminated against because
of that. In the 17th century, Catholics were forbidden to settle in
Virginia and Massachusetts. The local newspaper I read every week in Maine was
founded as an anti-Catholic vehicle -- and a Catholic priest was tarred and
feathered in the town in the 19th century. That was about the same
time a mob burned a convent in Massachusetts. (That anti-Catholic cartoon
above, by the way, is from 1876. It depicts Catholic bishops attacking innocent
schoolchildren.)

I can imagine someone writing awhile ago that
allowing Catholics to be colonels in the Marines would weaken the institution.

But eventually, what some people call "political
correctness" deemed that anti-Catholicism was wrong. And so there were no complaints when Paul
Frappollo enlisted in the Marines in 1949, and he rose to command a fighter
squadron in Danang during the Vietnam War. 
And yes, someday there will be an openly gay commander of a Marine
fighter squadron, if there hasn't already been one.