I have long maintained that the last publicly acceptable form of bigotry is gay bashing. It is often quite ugly. But it takes a Marine Corps general to make it flat out weird.

A retired Marine general, living somewhere in an alternate universe, testifies before Congress. He tells senators that the Dutch Army failed to protect the city of Srebrenica during the Bosnian war partly because of the presence of gay soldiers in its armed forces.

No, I’m not making it up. If only I were.

Here’s the Dutch defense ministry, operating in the real world, not the general’s alternative universe:

“It is astonishing that a man of his stature can utter such complete nonsense,” said Roger van de Wetering, the Dutch defense ministry spokesman. “I have never heard of a single statement by a Dutch political or military leader that drew a link between the fall of the enclave and the fact that there were Dutch homosexual soldiers.”