Center for Military Readiness

Despite the fact that she is something of a joke and prone to making ridiculous claims, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness has somehow become the leading opponent of repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell and so it is no surprise that she would show up in articles about the President's pledge to repeal the law:

"Civilian activists do not understand or respect the culture of the military," said Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, a think tank that opposes allowing gays in the military. "I'm sure the troops will be disheartened by this."

What is it exactly that Donnelly means by "civilian activists"?  Considering that, as her own bio makes clear, Donnelly has never actively served in the military, doesn't that make he also "civilian activist"? 

Donnelly likes to portray herself as someone whose deep concerns about the integrity and cohesion of our military require her to oppose allowing gays to serve openly when, in reality, she is little more than a professional right-wing activist who uses military issues to push her anti-gay agenda.

The other day, the American Family Association's OneNewsNow ran an article claiming that a recent poll conducted by the Military Officers Association of America showed that members of the military overwhelming oppose efforts to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

One of the leading activists opposed to homosexuals serving in the U.S. military says she's pleased that a recent poll of military officers shows overwhelming support for the 1993 ban enacted during the Clinton administration.

The poll was conducted by the Military Officers Association of America, or MOAA, with the results recently published in The Washington Times. By a two-to-one margin, the MOAA survey respondents favored the current policy or an even stronger law regarding the ban of homosexuals from military service. The survey also found that 68 percent of respondents believe that repeal of the law would have a negative effect on troop morale and military readiness.

Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, says this survey has effectively torpedoed the high-powered PR campaign for homosexuals in the military.

"What they're saying here is, 'Mr. President and Congress, we support this law. We think it would be disruptive to repeal it. And we ask that you support the law or certainly not go along with any efforts to undermine or repeal that law,'" she notes.

The Washington Times article in question noted that while the "organization consists of about 370,000 members representing every branch of the armed forces," the web-based survey it conducted only "received 1,664 responses." But that was apparently enough for the paper to declare that the "majority of American service members oppose integrating gays openly in the military" and for OneNewsNow and Donnelly to declare that the "survey has effectively torpedoed the high-powered PR campaign for homosexuals in the military."

Not so fast, says Col Marv Harris, MOAA's Director of Public Relations, who sent a message to David Hart explaining that the survey was "statistically invalid [and] not a reliable indicator of how a population feels about an issue":

To seek some member input, MOAA developed a five-question survey for MOAA members and put it on the MOAA web site and highlighted it in the legislative update. Web surveys aren't a reliable tool, but it was our only option to let members respond because we did not have time to develop a mail-out survey to a statistically valid random sample of members before the November meeting.

As it turned out, only about 500 people took the survey over 11 days. Because of the low response and indications that some non-members were passing the survey around to their friends in an effort to skew the results, we concluded that the results could not be considered a valid representation of member views and removed the link to the survey from our web site. Only recently did we learn that the data was still accessible if someone had written down the original link to it. We've since removed it.

The Board, in determining its position, considered inputs from members of the Board (particularly those currently serving), the Currently Serving Advisory Committee, and the MOAA staff. They agreed that the survey results were too skimpy and unreliable to be of any validity.

...

We are declining to provide a copy of the survey or discuss the results. The survey was statistically invalid for the reasons stated above, and therefore not a reliable indicator of how a population feels about an issue.

To its credit, MOAA is refusing to stand by the "results" of this survery, but I highly doubt that will stop Donnelly from continuing to cite it as "proof" in her campaign to protect the military from the scourge of homosexuality.

Over the weekend, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a story about a man who had worked for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for 17-years and then lost his job when it was discovered that he had failed to register with the Selective Service.  He has now joined three other ex-federal employees in filing a lawsuit arguing that the Selective Service System violates the Constitution by discriminating against men.

You just know that in any article about women in the military, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness is going to be quoted saying something predictably reasoned and insightful, and she does not disappoint: 

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush opened a discussion on the gender issue, convening the "Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces." The commission was overwhelmingly against both forced military service for females or placing them in combat units.

"You don't draft anyone unless you need combat replacements," said Elaine Donnelly, a member of the commission and president of the Center for Military Readiness, a non-partisan group. "Female soldiers in direct ground combat situations would not have an equal opportunity to survive."

She criticizes feminist groups for making "unreasonable" demands on the military.

It is exactly that sort of expertise and commitment to equality that landed Donnelly on the cover of the last issue of Focus on the Family’s “Citizen” magazine and won her accolades from Robert Knight and Tom Minnery:

[I]t’s hard to run over Elaine Donnelly. She has credentials, and she knows her subject. In 1984, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger appointed her to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services; in 1992 Presi-dent George H.W. Bush appointed her to the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces. Her articles have been widely published, and she has appeared on many national news programs.

But hers is a small organization, and she needs reinforcements. She needs to know that she is not the only civilian willing to defend the Defense Department. Let me ask you to do three things:

1) Find excerpts of her testimony on the Internet and watch the nastiness leveled at her. It will make you mad, and that will get you energized for points two and three.

2) Find your way to her Web site, CMRlink.org, and read her testimony—all of it, including her highly-detailed footnotes, and you will get an expert’s analysis of the problem of homosexuality in the military as well as the growing reality of women in infantry combat units.

3) Make a generous donation to her Center for Military Readiness—it’s tax-deductible—and then keep on making them, and from time to time enclose a personal note about your pride in participating in this particular battle. It is one we must win.

Elaine Donnelly is indeed a hero to a lot of us at Focus on the Family, including Dr. Dobson. We’ve supported her work every way we know how, for a long time. Now it’s your turn to step up.

Elaine Donnelly blames everyone but herself for her embarrassing performance: "'The follow-up media describing this hearing just continued a very abusive atmosphere. It was not by any means the kind of fair hearing that we had been led to expect,' she contends. 'But that was for two reasons -- the Democrats were determined to shape the hearing into the image that they had in mind. And secondly, the Republicans did not show up.'
According to a statement released by Donnelly Monday afternoon, she and Brian Jones -- a retired sergeant of the Army's Delta Force -- had difficulty being heard 'because liberal members of the committee attacked our motives, asked absurd questions, and tried to bully us in the presence of hostile media.'"