On Thursday, ABC News’ Bret Hovell and Matt Stuart Report posted on Political Radar a “testy” exchange between Sen. John McCain and a Concord, NH high school student who questioned the senator on his stance on gay rights. Of course, McCain reiterated his opposition to repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and legally recognizing gay and lesbian couples.

Here’s a bit of the faceoff:

William Sleaster, a student at Concord High School rose to ask McCain a question about gay rights and, ultimately dissatisfied by the answer he received from McCain, told the Republican presidential contender that he’d come looking to see a leader and didn’t.

McCain first answered the high school student by talking about his support for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the military’s policy regarding gays, and about his belief in the sanctity of marriage.

“Discrimination in any form is unacceptable in America today,” McCain said.

“I understand the controversy that continues to swirl around this issue,” McCain said. “That debate needs to be continued.”

Sleaster pressed on. “Do you support civil unions or gay marriage?”

“I do not,” McCain answered. “I think that they impinge on the status and the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.”

“So you believe in taking away someone’s rights because you believe it’s wrong?”

“I wouldn’t put that interpretation on my position, but I understand yours,” McCain said diplomatically.

…

“I came here looking to see a leader,” Sleaster said. “I don’t.”

I can’t help but wonder if William Sleaster’s opinion changed at all after watching McCain’s convention speech last night. Not surprisingly, nothing in McCain’s speech addressed any of the LGBT issues raised by the student….

You don’t have to be all that smart to get how dumb it is that more than 50 military-trained Arabic linguists have been fired for being gay when we are fighting two wars in countries were the predominant language is Arabic. In all, some 12,000 soldiers have been kicked out of the military for being gay or just being rumored to be gay. That’s one of the reasons I don’t understand Republican presidential candidate John McCain statement on repealing the current ban on openly gay and lesbian soldiers:

“So I think it would be a terrific mistake to even reopen the issue. It is working my friends. The policy is working.”

I mean seriously. 9/11 happened in part because our intelligence agencies did not have enough trained Arabic linguists to translate the backlog of intercepted messages and McCain supports the firing of dozens of Arabic specialists because they may be a little too attached to their collection of Madonna memorabilia?

More than 25 of our allied countries including our international BFF Great Britain allow gay and lesbian soldiers to serve openly and proudly while McCain wants the military to continue engaging in witchhunts, electronic snooping and gossip-mongering.

We can do better than that.