DADT

• Rep. Mike Pence won the Values Voter Straw Poll.
• The Religious Right is confident that its issues will be included in the forthcoming House GOP Contract with America.
• Mike Huckabee says "contrary to published reports I believe that there is a way to cover people with pre-existing conditions" and says they "should be covered and can be covered by individual states creating pools that provide coverage for people in high-risk categories."
• Bryan Fischer continues to pen column after column rooted entirely in his own ignorance, declaring with finality that "we have won the global warming debate."
• Apparently, Christine O'Donnell's past statements are too much for even CWA to defend, leaving them to simply attack the media and conservative men. 
• Quote of the day from Peter Sprigg opposing repeal of DADT on the grounds that it'll force the US taxpayers to support all those soldiers who get AIDS: "This creates a financial problem, since taxpayers will have to pay for the health care of HIV-infected service members for the rest of their lives through the military and veterans’ health programs."
• The AFA's Don Wildom received the James C. Dobson Vision and Leadership Award at the Values Voter Summit - here is the intro video they produced:

In about one hour, Tony Perkins, Harry Jackson, Lou Engle and others are joining forces for a webcast opposing the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

Family Research Council President and Marine veteran Tony Perkins will join Bishop Harry Jackson, Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Austin Nimocks and African American pastors from five states at a news conference Monday at 2 p.m. ET in Washington, D.C. The speakers will address religious liberty concerns on the eve of the U.S. Senate vote to overturn the law against the practice of open homosexual behavior in the military.

WHO: Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council

Bishop Harry Jackson, Chairman, High Impact Leadership Coalition

Pastor Aubrey Shines, Tampa, FL

Pastor Christopher Brooks, Detroit, MI

Bishop Leon Benjamin, Richmond, VA

Reverend Dean Nelson, Washington, DC

Reverend Lou Engle, President, The Call

Austin Nimocks, Senior Counsel, Alliance Defense Fund

WHERE: Watch Online: www.frc.org

Or in-person: FRC Media Center, 801 G. Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20001

WHEN: Monday, September 20, 2010, 2 PM ET

• Good As You: Delaware, meet your potential next Senator.
• Truth Wins Out: TWO Calls On Delaware GOP Senate Nominee Christine O’Donnell To Apologize For Running Failed Ex-Gay Program.
• Scott Keyes @ Think Progress: O’Donnell So Fervently Pro-Truth That She Wouldn’t Lie To Nazis Asking If She Were Hiding Jews In Her Home.
• Sarah Posner @ Religion Dispatches: What O'Donnell Tells Us About Tea Party Religion.
• Justin Elliott @ Salon: O'Donnell warned of "orgy rooms" in college dorms.
• Andy Birkey @ Minnesota Independent: Bachmann to appear at “Sharia report” release.
• Joe.My.God: Family Research Council Launches Phone Campaign Against DADT Repeal Vote.
• Ian Millhiser @ Wonk Room: California Lt. Gov. Says He Had More Important Things To Do Than File Prop 8 Appeal.
• Alan Colmes: Cal Thomas Wants Government To Monitor Sermons in Mosques.

• FRC, TVC, and CWA react to the DADT ruling. Shockingly, they disagree with it.
• It seems unclear whether Terry Jones has actually canceled his "Burn a Koran Day" tomorrow, though Rob Schenck met with him and says he doesn't think he'll go ahead with it.
• Sean Hannity has joined the Values Voter Summit.
• Rick Santorum set to deliver a big speech on faith in the public square on the 50th Anniversary of John F. Kennedy's famous speech addressing his faith and the need to separate church and state.
• Hey, guess what?  The World Trade Center had a Muslim prayer room in it. Didn't they realize how insensitive that was?

• PFAW Statement: GOP Obstruction Against Judges Reaches New Low.
• Justin Elliott @ Salon: Why did no one object to the "Pentagon mosque"?
• Ben Armbruster @ Think Progress: Angle opposes civil rights protections for gays, wants clergy to endorse candidates from the pulpit.
• Zachary Roth @ Daily Beast: NAACP-Bashing Tea Partier Returns.
• Joe Sudbay @ Americablog: McCain's tantrum on the Senate floor over DADT and hate crimes.
• Alan Colmes: Anti-Abortion Group’s Prayers Have Been Answered Now That Abortion Doctor Has Leukemia.
• Jonathan Chait: Mitch McConnell's Honest Dishonesty.
• Towleroad: Iowa PAC Forms to Unseat Justices Who Legalized Gay Marriage.
• Jacob Weisberg @ Slate: Why Sarah Palin says all those stupid and ridiculous things.

Last night the Family Research Council hosted a webcast entitled "Mission Compromised: How the military is being used to advance a radical agenda" which featured several members of Congress along with Religious Right activists discussing both efforts to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell and efforts to allow abortion at military facilities. 

In this first clip, Oliver North tells Tony Perkins that conservative, home-schooled kids who read the Bible instead of looking at porn will stop joining the military if DADT is repealed because it will eventually lead to NAMBLA members being allowed to serve:

Next up is Rep. Todd Akin who tells Perkins that our military actions have always been just, but that if we allow abortions to take place at military facilities and gays to serve openly, the fundamental justice of our military will be lost:

In this next clip, Perkins and Army Sgt. Benjamin Ratliff claim that letting gays serve would cause real problems for soldiers because they might be reluctant to "spoon" in a life-threatening situation because they might have concerns about the guy next to them:

But no clip better exposes the utter fradulence and fatuousness of the right-wing campaign against DADT's repeal than this. First you have the AFA's Bryan Fischer claiming that allowing gays to serve would cause all those with good, conservative Christian values to leave the military; this has been a favorite right-wing talking point, but it is entire undermined by Sgt. Ratliff himself, who states that even if DADT was repealed, he would continue to serve and would urge others to do so as well because even though he would disagree with it, he loves his country more:

Given that we are in the middle of Elena Kagan's Supreme Court confirmation hearing and keep hearing all sorts of complaints from the Right about "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench" and whatever, I just wanted to highlight this article from Focus on the Family because it  perfectly demonstrates just how bogus this entire talking point really is: 

A new front just opened Monday in the political tug-of-war over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" – a Clinton-era policy prohibiting people who are openly gay or lesbian from serving in the military.

U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips in Riverside, Calif., agreed to hear a case that challenges the military policy. The lawsuit was filed by the Log Cabin Republicans, a fiscally conservative, gay-activist group within the Republican Party.

Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for CitizenLink, is concerned the proceedings could become a show trial – with the underlying intent to solidifying the concept that gay members of the military are a victimized class and in need of special protections.

"Once again, gay activists want to use the courts to impose social change rather than leaving this issue to the democratic process," said Hausknecht. "There never seems a lack of judges who will jump at the chance to legislate from the bench."

Hausknecht is angry that the Log Cabin Republicans are trying to use to the courts to impose this change instead of allowing the democratic process to take care of it.  At the same time, Focus on the Family is vehemently opposing efforts in Congress to repeal DADT, which is the very "democratic process" they say should be used. 

So what happens if Congress does manage to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell?

Robert Maginnis, senior fellow for national security with the Family Research Council, doesn't make much out of this case, as he believes Congress will succeed in repealing the policy well before the November election – and before the court can rule.

"The real decision's going to be made by the Congress," said Maginnis, "and then we have a fight after that – if, in fact, they do repeal."

Hmmm .... is FRC suggesting that they will go to court to fight the repeal of DADT?  

But what about the sanctity of the "democratic process"?  What about using judges to impose decisions contrary to the will of the people?  What about legislating from the bench? 

So apparently the Religious Right is opposed to using the courts to try and repeal DADT ... but entirely willing to use the courts to try and repeal any repeal of DADT. 

A few months back, retired General John Sheehan generated outrage when he blamed the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica on gay Dutch troops: 

In July 1995 Bosnian Serb forces overran the Bosnian Muslim enclave under the protection of Dutch UN peacekeepers and killed 8,000 Muslim males, making the event a traumatic national disgrace for the Dutch.

Following recent remarks from Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, that Europeans had gone soft, Sheehan argued that changes after the end of the cold war had reduced Europe's appetite for combat.

"They declared a peace dividend and made a conscious effort to socialise their military – that includes the unionisation of their militaries, it includes open homosexuality. That led to a force that was ill-equipped to go to war," he said.

"The case in point that I'm referring to is when the Dutch were required to defend Srebrenica against the Serbs. The battalion was under-strength, poorly led, and the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to the telephone poles, marched the Muslims off, and executed them. That was the largest massacre in Europe since world war two."

He added that the Dutch chief of staff had told him that having gay soldiers at Srebrenica had sapped morale and contributed to the disaster.

So what does he do for a follow-up?  Pen a joint op-ed with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins opposing the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, of course:

Men and women should be allowed to serve in the military only if their character and conduct can help the U.S. armed forces achieve its mission. In multiple studies over the past 16 years, the addition of open homosexuality into the close quarters and tightly knit units of our military was predicted to add tension, not build unit cohesion.

“Unit cohesion” is essential to the success of the U.S. military. Respect for and loyalty and commitment to one another, to the point of a willingness to die for your buddy, is the single greatest imperative in any military force.

Yet homosexuality carries with it profound behavioral implications. Sexual attraction among members of the same sex — living, exercising, fighting and training alongside one another in the closest of quarters — could devastate morale, foster heightened interpersonal tension and lead to division among those who, more than virtually any other group in society, need to act as one.

...

In addition, the medical implications of Obama’s proposal are compelling. According to data released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gay and bisexual men are 50 times more likely to have HIV than heterosexual men.

This would be devastating for military resources already stretched thin, and it has pronounced implications for battlefield blood transfusions.

This proposal is not about bigotry. Race is a superficial and benign element of one’s humanness, while homosexuality is a matter of behavior.

Homosexuality is not about civil rights but conduct detrimental to the discipline, trust and combat readiness of what has been — and still is — the world’s finest military.

If we want to keep it that way, we should not permit openly practicing homosexuals to serve in the U.S. military.

It is remarkable to watch right-wing commentators desperately trying to come up with new and convincing reasons why Don't Ask, Don't Tell should remain in place.  

In the last few days, we've seen the Family Research Council's Peter Sprigg claims that it'll lead to widespread gay rape, while his colleague, FRC President Tony Perkins claims that it'll destroy the religious freedom of military chaplains.

At the same time, Cliff Kincaid’s America’s Survival has been warning that our soldiers will be destroyed by "disease-tainted gay blood" ... and he is now being outdone by Scott Lively, who has set out his own list of reasons, including his standard "the Nazis were gay" claims, along with warnings about the reinstatement of the draft, the ultimate takeover of the military by gays, and that we are endangering the lives of all Americans by outraging Muslims:

Once homosexuals are invited to serve, the authorities will be committed to integrate them into the ranks, which means “sensitivity” training, anti-discrimination policies, and all of the other “politically correct” nonsense that has been such a disaster in the other spheres of our society. These policies have smacked of pro-“gay” fascism in the civilian world; how much worse would it be in the rigidly-controlled environment of the military?

A sizable percentage of men would not willingly subject themselves to such an environment. So, ironically, reinstatement of the draft would be made necessary by “homophobia,” and for that reason the anti-war Lefties would suddenly become defenders of compulsory service.

...

Most people don’t realize that male homosexuality does not always lean to the effeminate. Historically, male homosexuality was much more often associated with hyper-masculine warrior societies which were usually very brutal and very politically aggressive. The most recent example was in Germany. Hitler’s initial power base when he launched the Nazi Party was a private homosexual military force organized and trained by a notorious pederast named Gerhard Rossbach. Rossbach’s homosexual partner Ernst Roehm, who was also Hitler’s partner in forming and building the Nazi Party, converted the “gay” Rossbachbund into the dreaded SA Brownshirts.

...

Next would come a severe drop in enlistments and re-enlistments, triggering the reinstatement of the draft. This would in turn begin a degeneration of the moral and ethical culture of the services as those with the highest personal values would be most likely to leave, being replaced, in many cases, by men whose motivation is to share a male-dominated environment with others of similar sexual proclivities.

...

Lastly, and perhaps most serious is the loss of our moral authority around the world, especially in the Moslem countries. Until now, we have relied upon the partnership of moderate Moslems in our campaign to marginalize the extremists who already call us The Great Satan for our moral ambiguities. Yet how quickly will we lose the popular support of these people and governments when they know that the soldiers we are sending for “nation-building” on Moslem soil are overt, practicing homosexuals? We are handing the extremists an entirely new and powerful recruiting tool, and undermining the goodwill of every socially conservative nation on the planet, culminating in a net increase of danger for our troops and decrease of respect for our way of life.