It has come to my attention that PFC Bradley Manning -- the leaker at the center of the Wiki Leaks scandal -- is openly gay.

According to Ace, Manning was upset because of a breakup with his lover or something like that, and decided to betray many American allies to the Taliban. Great. So the guy is a traitor who betrayed his country out of purely personal spite. Ace thinks he should be hanged, and if he is ever tried and convicted of treason or espionage, he very well could -- and should -- get the death penalty. (But isn't the federal punishment now lethal injection?)

What I'm having trouble understanding is how his being gay is an argument against gays or against allowing gays to serve -- any more than it would have been an indictment of heterosexuality had a straight soldier freaked out over a cheating spouse and committed some awful crime in retaliation.

Apparently it is considered relevant -- at least by Accuracy In Media, which argues that the man's conduct is an indictment of gays in the military:

"The revelations of Manning's openly pro-homosexual conduct suggest that a more liberal Department of Defense policy, in deference to the wishes of the Commander-in-Chief, had already been in effect and has now backfired in a big way. The result could be not only the loss of the lives of U.S. soldiers, as a result of the enemy understanding U.S. intelligence sources and methods, but damaged relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan and a possible U.S. military defeat in the region as a whole." - Accuracy in Media

I've heard a number of arguments against gays in the military, but this one takes the cake.

But if one bad fruit spoils the whole batch, hey, as I pointed out to M. Simon in an email, John Wayne Gacy was gay, too!

And come to think of it, so was Hitler.

Clearly, those awful gays will stop at nothing!

MORE: According to Manning's Wiki entry (which notes that Daniel "Pentagon Papers" Ellsberg has been praising him), Manning seems to have also engaged in heterosexual conduct:

Before being arrested, Manning had been demoted for assaulting another soldier, and was to be discharged early.[5][9] In the chats, Manning also told Lamo about his demotion and some of his personal problems - that he had been through a break-up with his girlfriend and that he was feeling lonely and unsupported by his family[5][9] - but whether these events occurred before or after his discovery of the material or his release of the material to Wikileaks, is not made clear from excerpts of the chat logs released by Wired.[11][18]

They're probably the worst traitors of all!

AND MORE: It gets worse better. According to this Gawker story, Manning may be a preoperative transsexual.

But does that mean he is gay? Possibly. Considering his relationship with a woman, if he is himself a "woman in transition," depending on your interpretation of these things, then "she" may have already been in at least one lesbian relationship. And while that wouldn't make him gay, it would make "her" a lesbian.

MORE: Another tough question is whether Manning would be "gay" if "she" had sex with a man. Hmmm....

I honestly don't know. I try to be logical about these things but it's been a long day and I'm genuinely getting confused. Transgender arguments especially exhaust me.

It seems clear, though, that if Manning still has a penis, unless has had sex with men he cannot be considered gay. Nor is it IMO really fair to call him a lesbian until that point where he legally becomes a woman.

MORE: If this article in the Telegraph is correct, it's pretty clear that Manning is gay.

Mr Manning, who is openly homosexual, began his gloomy postings on January 12, saying: "Bradley Manning didn't want this fight. Too much to lose, too fast."

At the beginning of May, when he was serving at a US military base near Baghdad, he changed his status to: "Bradley Manning is now left with the sinking feeling that he doesn't have anything left."

Five days later he said he was "livid" after being "lectured by ex-boyfriend", then later the same day said he was "not a piece of equipment" and was "beyond frustrated with people and society at large".

His tagline on his personal page reads: "Take me for who I am, or face the consequences!"

Mr Manning was arrested at the end of May on suspicion of leaking a video of a US helicopter attack, and quickly became the main suspect when the Afghan war documents were leaked earlier this week.

FINAL NOTE: I agree with Ace that the full story is being covered up. I am sick of stories being buried out of fear of harming the Narrative -- which is why I wrote this post about it.

People who think that a gay traitor means gays are traitors are bigots, but that does not mean that the story of a gay traitor should not be reported.

MORE: A man who went on a murderous rampage apparently claimed he was motivated by racial discrimination:

After hunting down and killing coworkers that he thought were racist, the gunman at the Connecticut beer distributorship called 911 and calmly explained that he was done shooting but wished he had murdered more.

"You probably want to know the reason for this," Omar Thornton said in a relaxed tone."This place is a racist place. They treat me bad over here and all the other black employees bad over here too."

"So I took it into my own hands and handled the problem," he said. "I wish I could've got more of the people."

This place is a homophobic place. They treat me bad over here and all the other gay employees bad over here too."

"So I took it into my own hands and handled the problem," he said. "I wish I could've got more of the people."

Whether Manning's conduct was in retaliation for whatever "homophobia" he may have perceived remains to be seen.