Cliff Kincaid

After expressing hope that efforts to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would ultimately fail, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness (who, by the way, is not close to being an expert on the issue) told Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid that the draft is on its way once DADT is scrapped. According to Donnelly, the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell “could put remaining troops in greater danger, and break the All-Volunteer Force.”

Donnelly joins other right wing activists like Tony Perkins, David Bossie, Frank Gaffney, and Bryan Fischer, in forecasting the return of conscription as a result of the repeal. In 2006, Donnelly also predicted that allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve openly will lead to “forcible sodomy,” “introducing erotic factors,” and the proliferation of “HIV positivity.”

Kincaid, though, held out hope that the incoming House Republican majority and Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), the designated Chair of the Armed Services Committee, would be able to block repeal:

McKeon had told reporters that he wanted to hold hearings that would include rank-and-file service members along with military leaders. “I would really like to hear from battlefield commanders,” McKeon said. “I would like to hear from battalion commanders, I would like to hear from company commanders on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq to see what their feelings are.”

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So will Congress approve the changes, knowing that they could result in the return of the military draft?

As the Times indicates, the specific language of the bill is that the repeal must be “consistent with the standards of military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention of the Armed Forces.”

The burden is on the gay rights lobby to prove that the changes would have no negative effect on any of the above. How can they prove such a thing when the Pentagon has already concluded that the change is risky and faces opposition from as many as 60 percent of our combat troops?

But the Pentagon’s own “Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with the Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” found, “In the key areas of military readiness, unit effectiveness, and unit cohesion the risks were all deemed to be LOW” and that “the change in culture and environment in warfighting units will be minimal.” 69% of respondents already claimed to have knowingly served with a gay or lesbian soldier, and of them “92% stated that the unit’s ‘ability to work together’ was ‘very good,’ ‘good,’ or ‘neither good nor poor.’”

But Donnelly and Kincaid continue to discount and distort the clear evidence from the Pentagon's study that the repeal of DADT will have little effect at all on the military, and claim that unless Republicans belatedly block the repeal, a draft is imminent.

If you thought that the arguments opposing the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell weren’t desperate enough, many on the Right are now suggesting that the ban on gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military should be kept in place because the alleged Wikileaks-leaker is gay. A New York Times profile on intelligence analyst Bradley Manning’s “desperation for acceptance — or delusions of grandeur” found that much of his “social life was defined by the need to conceal his sexuality under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and he wasted brainpower fetching coffee for officers.” The Times went on to report that “even as he professed a perhaps inflated sense of purpose, he called himself ‘emotionally fractured’ and a ‘wreck’ and said he was ‘self-medicating like crazy.’”

For the right wing media, the story wasn’t that Manning had a history of being victimized and excluded because of his sexual orientation, but that as a result of his sexual orientation he became a traitor. Ann Coulter suggests that Manning was a “narcissistic hothouse flower” and the “poster boy for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”:

With any luck, Bradley's court-martial will be gayer than a Liza Minelli wedding. It could be the first court-martial in U.S. history to feature ice sculptures and a "Wizard of Oz"-themed gazebo. "Are you going to Bradley's court-martial? I hear Patti LaBelle is going to sing!"

Maybe there's a reason gays have traditionally been kept out of the intelligence services, apart from the fact that closeted gay men are easy to blackmail. Gays have always been suspicious of that rationale and perhaps they're right.

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Bradley's friends told the Times they suspected "his desperation for acceptance -- or delusions of grandeur" may have prompted his document dump.

Let's check our "Gay Profile at a Glance" and ... let's see ... desperate for acceptance ... delusions of grandeur ... yep, they're both on the gay subset list!

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Look at the disaster one gay created under our punishing "don't ask, don't tell" policy. What else awaits America with the overturning of a policy that was probably put there for a reason (apart from being the only thing Bill Clinton ever did that I agreed with)?

Liberals don't care. Their approach is to rip out society's foundations without asking if they serve any purpose.

The Family Research Council has also jumped in, commenting:

Now that the enemy has access to American intelligence, our mission in the Middle East may be irreparably harmed--all because President Obama is less concerned with winning the war than he is with winning the far-Left's approval. Unfortunately for all of us, Manning's betrayal painfully confirms what groups like FRC have argued all along: the instability of the homosexual lifestyle is a detriment to military readiness. By foisting this agenda on our soldiers, the White House is not only jeopardizing the future of national security but compromising its present.

WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah said that “the system of moral blindness and the disconnect from common sense,” which allowed Manning to serve as a closeted gay man in the first place, “made [the leak] inevitable.” Cliff Kincaid of the conservative Accuracy In Media blasted news outlets for not covering Manning’s sexual orientation enough for his liking, and claims that Manning’s sexuality and support for gay rights show that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell doesn’t go far enough and should become more stringent. Kincaid writes:

Now, because of the obvious mishandling of this homosexual ticking time bomb, it appears that the United States, its soldiers, and relations with countries in the region will pay the price. Lives-and a war on terrorism in Afghanistan-could be lost.

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.

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The dramatic revelations about Manning's circle of friends and associates suggest that, rather than repeal the homosexual exclusion policy, as Obama is demanding, the prohibition on homosexuals should have been more strictly enforced and that it should be strengthened today.

As the Right tries to score political points by saying that due to Manning’s individual problems and turmoil, all gay and lesbian servicemembers should be viewed as disgruntled, treacherous, unstable, and disloyal people. And, the say, rather than dismantle Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which produces extreme and troubling pressures on closeted soldiers, the policy should become more severe and oppressive.

I always thought that the central tenet of the Christian faith was ... well, faith.  But, as it turns out, when someone like President Obama claims to be a Christian, that can't just be taken on faith, which is why we keep seeing column after column written by right-wing activists claiming that they don't believe that Obama is, in fact, a Christian ... and it is entierly his own fault, of course:

The current president has neither a church, nor, to my knowledge, even a denomination. When I'm asked questions about his faith, by sincere people not looking to attack, I sincerely can't give a good answer. It's a problem I didn't have with any of the Bushes, the Clintons, Reagan, Carter, and on and on.

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Of course, it shouldn't be difficult to rectify misperceptions. Throughout American history, presidents have been asked about their faith and sat for lengthy interviews sharing their thinking, explaining precisely what they believe. Why doesn't Obama simply do the same? This isn't rocket science ... Obama's problem isn't a tiny fringe that believes he faces Mecca to pray five times a day, but an increasingly large number of Americans that aren't sure what he believes. Until he makes that clearer, confusion will understandably reign.

Sure, Obama may claim to be a Christian, says Mychal Massie, but that means nothing:

In the aftermath of Obama's unsolicited, controversial dictates over the Ground Zero mosque debate, White House image-makers are now trying to convince the public he is a devout Christian. Specific to that point, he may not be a Muslim, but I'm convinced he isn't a Christian, either.

As evidence of his devoutness, the White House has entered into evidence that he allegedly prays every day. Let me be clear – praying every day no more makes one a Christian than walking across a stream makes one a fisherman.

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Scriptures tell us that by our works we shall be known (Matthew 7:15-20). Where is Obama's fruit? I think it can be reasonably argued that, if he were a Christian following after Jesus, there would be no questions about his faith. If his actions were Christ-like, people wouldn't question whether or not he is a Muslim.

And if you thought the Birthers were an annoyingly insistent bunch, let's just hope that Cliff Kincaid's demands for proof that Obama was actually baptized never catches on:

Obama talks about hearing a Wright sermon, “The Audacity of Hope,” which inspired the title of his second book. However, there is no mention of any baptism in this—his first—book. The reference to being baptized came in the second book, as Obama was preparing to launch his presidential campaign. The timing is significant.

These are the facts as Obama himself reported them. So how have the media handled them? Needless to say, there has been no serious investigation into whether the claims are true and what they mean.

“Obama’s religious biography is unconventional and politically problematic,” Newsweek’s Lisa Miller reported. “Born to a Christian-turned-secular mother and a Muslim-turned-atheist African father, Obama grew up living all across the world with plenty of spiritual influences, but without any particular religion. He is now a Christian, having been baptized in the early 1990s at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.”

The phrase, “having been baptized,” is apparently based on Obama’s claim about being baptized. Our major media haven’t questioned the claim.

Miller went on to say, “His baptism presents its own problems. The senior pastor at Trinity at the time of Obama’s baptism was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the preacher who was seen damning America on cable TV…”

Notice the formulation, “at the time of Obama’s baptism.” She carefully does not say that Wright performed the baptism. In fact, there’s no evidence it was a baptism in the traditional sense that it was performed by Wright or anybody else. It looks like Obama walked down the aisle and made a profession of faith. That is not a Christian baptism.

Last month we noted that Peter LaBarbera's Americans for Truth would be hosting a three-day training conference for anti-gay activists featuring a who's who of the most hostile voices in the movement, including LaBarbera, Robert Knight, Ryan Sorba, and Matt Barber. 

Today Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid, who shares a LaBarbera-level hatred for gays, has now been added to the list of instructors, which explains why he is now writing glowing columns about the conference warning that it is our only hope of save America from its "moral suicide" as gays seek to kill themselves and everyone else:

LaBarbera is one of those brave few taking a leadership role in the effort to preserve traditional American social and religious values. Fighting off the predictable smears of “hater” and “homophobe” from the gay-run Media Matters group and the Southern Poverty Law Center, he and his associates will be gathering near Chicago from August 5-7 to educate the next generation—and their parents—about the consequences if homosexuality is promoted in the schools and by the federal government. This is when AFTAH is launching a Truth Academy on how to fight the “gay agenda.” I am honored to be invited to be a part of this effort. I will be discussing gay influence on the media and the homosexual drive for the “right” to donate possibly infected and contaminated blood to the nation’s blood supply.

Adults and young people alike are encouraged to sign up for this much-needed effort to organize the pro-family forces in America. The issue is just as important as the massive debt and deficits that are threatening to financially bankrupt the nation. The cost to attend the AFTAH Truth Academy is only $99 for students, $199 for adults, and $299 for couples.

A tentative list of instructors is proof that the three-day event will provide all of the evidence you need to understand that acceptance of homosexuality is not only a health hazard to those practicing this “lifestyle” but a historical indicator that our society is going down the drain. As such, you will leave the event convinced that the moral bankruptcy of America has to be avoided, in the same way that we need to keep our nation’s fiscal house in order. The Tea Party, in other words, has to take on a moral dimension. Our crisis is more than money alone.

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As noted by Bible scholar William Barclay, Paul’s remarks seemed, at first glance, like the work of “some almost hysterical moralist” at the time. But it was “an age of moral suicide,” Barclay said, explaining that “Society from top to bottom was riddled with unnatural vice. Fourteen out of the first fifteen Roman Emperors were homosexuals.”

We haven’t reached that state of affairs in America quite yet. But we are fast approaching it ... On the gay rights front, things are also moving forward for the progressives and their libertarian brethren. In fact, the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute boasts that Obama has already appointed a “record number” of openly LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) individuals. Perhaps we are catching up with Rome more quickly than anybody realizes.

But don’t get the idea that these people are serving just so they can prove they can do the job and be left alone. They are in positions of power for a reason. Their “job” is to use the power of the federal government to promote homosexuality. One of the most significant appointments is John Berry as the director of the Office of Personnel Management, with jurisdiction over 1.9 million federal employees and 2.5 million retirees.

Tragically, while the gays continue to expand their “rights” in the government and private sectors, they are killing themselves in greater numbers—and pushing policies that threaten the lives of the rest of us. This is where we need real “compassionate conservatism”—not to condemn these people but save them from themselves. And save ourselves and our children in the process.