Don't Ask Don't tell

In his daily email yesterday, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins expressed concern about the rising rate of reported sexual assault in the military….which he blamed on the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:

President Obama is finally admitting that sexual assault is a serious problem in the military--but what he hasn't conceded is that his policy on homosexuality helped create it. According to a new Pentagon survey, most of the victims were not female (12,000 incidents), but male (14,000)--highlighting a growing trend of same-sex assault in our ranks. Although the Defense Department says it "recognizes the challenges male survivors face," one of the biggest problems is their silence in reporting it. The Washington Times, one of the first to highlight the discrepancy, explains that the Pentagon's attention is largely focused on the females experiencing abuse "overlooking the far greater numbers of men, who, according to the survey, are being victimized but not reporting it."

How could this happen? Well, for starters, the Obama administration ordered military leaders to embrace homosexuality--completely dismissing the concerns that it could be a problem to have people attracted to the same sex, living in close quarters. What's more, explains Marine Capt. Lindsay Rodman, the statistics aren't reliable and may be hiding thousands more cases of service-based abuse. "The truth is," she writes in the Wall Street Journal, "that the 26,000 figure [of victims] is such bad math--derived from an unscientific sample set and extrapolated military-wide--that no conclusions can be drawn from it." Except one, perhaps, which is that groups like FRC were right to be concerned about the overturning of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Sexual assault of males in the military is a serious problem. But it hasn’t been caused by President Obama’s “policy on homosexuality” and neither is there any documentation of “a growing trend of same-sex assault in our ranks.”

Not only is the rate of sexual assault much higher for women in the armed forces than for men, since they make up a much smaller percentage of the active-duty force, but the recent increase in sexual assault has primarily impacted female servicemembers.  According to CNN, “The Defense Department data from 2010 to 2012 found that the prevalence of unwanted sexual contact increased for active duty women and remained unchanged for active duty men.”

Yesterday, Perkins’ colleague Jerry Boykin similarly blamed the increase in reported sexual assaults on the repeal of DADT and the policy allowing women in combat.

Yesterday Janet Mefferd hosted Family Research Council president Tony Perkins where they spent most of the time lamenting the inevitable nomination of Mitt Romney, as Mefferd was troubled by Romney’s past (but since renounced) support of gay rights. But the two agreed that Obama’s advocacy for equal rights for gays and lesbians is far more disconcerting and Perkins even tied last year’s repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to the scandal involving Secret Service agents who solicited prostitutes in Colombia. While prostitution is legal in the country, their use of prostitutes had the potential to compromise the President’s security. Perkins claimed that since the President has been “enforcing open homosexuality in our military” then he should not have been “upset” about the prostitution scandal, maintaining that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’s repeal led to “a total breakdown” in “moral order”:

Mefferd: You know one issue that I think has not gotten as much attention as it deserves to get is the homosexuality issue. A lot of people have talked about Mitt Romney and what he did with the gay marriage issue and so forth in Massachusetts, but even Politico and the New York Times have talked a lot about the increasing number of top Republicans who are donating to pro-gay causes, the extent to which the GOP doesn’t want to fight on this issue anymore. But we as Christians can’t stand stop fighting on this issue, Tony, so what do we do when we’re faced with a race where maybe we feel like the candidates are way too similar on this and both of them are wrong?

Perkins: Yeah, you know that’s a great point. Just for a moment step back and look at the implications of this, over the weekend we saw the news of the President’s Secret Service detail in Colombia and the issue of them hiring prostitutes and now the White House is outraged about that. Actually in a meeting this morning my staff asked, ‘why should the President be upset’? It was actually legal; it was legal there to do that, so why should we be upset? Well, the fact is we intuitively know it’s wrong, there’s a moral law against that.

The same is true for what the President has done to the military enforcing open homosexuality in our military. You can change the law but you can’t change the moral law that’s behind it. You can change the positive law, the law that is created by man, but you can’t change the moral law, it’s wrong. So what you have is you have a total breakdown and you can’t pick and choose. Morality is not a smorgasbord; you can’t pick what you want. I think you’re absolutely right, this is a fundamental issue going forward because if we say ‘let them do what we want,’ what’s next? You cannot maintain moral order if you are willing to allow a few things to slide.

Anti-gay author Michael Brown spoke today at the Family Research Council event, “Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace.” His speech included the standard right-wing attacks against equal rights for the LGBT community as well as many plugs for his book, A Queer Thing Happened to America. Most of the speech focused on bemoaning the political gains made by gay rights advocates and growing societal acceptance for gay lesbian and transgender people. Brown even warned that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell made the military into a “massive pro-gay propaganda machine” and joined other conservatives in decrying the kiss between Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta and her girlfriend Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell:

After a laudatory introduction by FRC senior fellow Peter Sprigg, Brown even gave a shout out to Right Wing Watch!

With the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell fully in effect, the doomsday predictions of right-wing naysayers failed to materialize as no incidents have been reported. But that hasn’t stopped supporters of the discriminatory policy from continuing to criticize the military and attack openly gay service members, and the two women sailors who won a raffle to share the traditional ‘first kiss’ are now in the Religious Right’s crosshairs. Randy Thomasson of Save California railed against the kiss between Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta and her girlfriend Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, and told the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow that the Navy is now engaging in “perverse social engineering” on behalf of “an aggressive homosexual activist community”:

Randy Thomasson of SaveCalifornia.com is familiar with the tactics of homosexual activists in California, home to both Gaeta and Snell.

"San Diego, being the top Navy port on the West Coast, has an aggressive homosexual activist community which is just applauding this big time, saying 'it's delightful,' saying, 'it's fantastic,'" he laments.

Sailors purchased $1 tickets at a raffle to raise money for a Christmas party for children whose parents are in the military. Gaeta purchased $50 worth of tickets, and the lesbian couple was chosen to have the first kiss.

Thomasson argues that is not what the military is for. "It's about a fighting force to defend our shores, to defend our interests, and to advance the cause of the United States' security in the world," he tells OneNewsNow. "I would not make it social engineering that the Navy has done it, and now perverse social engineering."

Mission America president Linda Harvey today released her much-awaited top ten list of “‘gay’ abuses” (scare quotes hers), with the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell topping the list. Also on the list are same-sex parents who have a transgender child; the firing of a Macy’s employee who refused to follow the company’s policy on LGBT customers; the next five condemned California’s passage of SB 48, which ensures that history textbooks don’t exclude prominent LGBT figures, the Obama administration’s push to stop the criminalization of homosexuality and state-sanctioned violence against LGBT people around the world; and the anti-suicide “It Gets Better” video series and the decision by the Justice Department not to defend the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act. Many of these initiatives Harvey has already criticized.

The repeal of the discriminatory Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy is at the top of the list even though no incidents have been reported. Harvey warned that soldiers may be led by a “prancing drill sergeant” and people who have “truly lost their way, their shame, their innate sense of God's touch on and design for their lives.” Harvey warned that advances in gay rights will lead to America’s “decline into barbarism” and that they represent a “radical ideology” that is “purposely endangering families, children, our nation’s security, our economy and the religious freedom of all who don’t go along.”

Harvey goes on to caution that “God has warned us” about “this destructive agenda,” arguing that “these sinful impulses will end in catastrophe”:

And the No. 1 abuse of homosexual activism in the United States in 2011, was the implementation of the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," allowing open homosexual behavior in our military. No one can yet know how damaging the repeal of the ban on sodomy will be – we can only guess – but there's no question that it will damage the character of our armed forces and undermine their effectiveness. Dare I say the obvious? We need non-effeminate men in the military. Does anyone really believe that a prancing drill sergeant won't detract from readiness? Where women are serving, they should be women of high character, not those who embrace homosexual conduct and publicly declare a "sin" identity. These folks have truly lost their way, their shame, their innate sense of God's touch on and design for their lives.

Friends, this list is a call to action. We need to first understand the decline into barbarism that homosexual and sex-change activism brings. Then, we need to each be that person who gets it, who understands that these folks with their radical ideology are purposely endangering families, children, our nation's security, our economy and the religious freedom of all who don't go along.

God has warned us in the pages of Scripture that these sinful impulses will end in catastrophe. It's not true that this is just another way to love, but these activists, as you can see, intend to overturn the beauty of traditional sexual morality.

Please join me in pledging to speak out against this destructive agenda wherever possible during 2012.

Mitt Romney has attempted to thread the needle on whether gays and lesbians have a right to serve openly in the military, saying he staunchly opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell but is not willing to reinstate the policy. In a 1994 letter to the Log Cabin Republicans, Romney called Don’t Ask Don’t Tell “the first of a number of steps that will ultimately lead to gays and lesbians being able to serve openly and honestly in our nation's military,” but then in 2007 Romney claimed he originally found the policy “silly” but effective, and has since criticized attempts to repeal it. In a June debate Romney dodged a question on whether he would reverse the repeal, until he finally told the Des Moines Register editorial board this week that he would oppose the restoration of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

While his halfhearted and milquetoast stand may not surprise the vast majority of Americans who supported the policy’s repeal, it has not played well with Religious Right activists who want to see Don’t Ask Don’t Tell reinstated.

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness recently started the Military Culture Coalition along with other conservative leaders to oppose repeal efforts, denounced Romney for his position of supporting Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in principle but not its reinstatement:

Donnelly questioned Governor Romney's comments to the Des Moines Register, noting that "The military does not work that way. Flawed policies that impose heavy 'complicating features' on the backs of military men and women cannot and should not be switched on and off, depending on the direction of political winds or promises made to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) activists of either political party."

She added, "Sound policies that reinforce morale and readiness should be maintained at all times. A long list of what Governor Romney calls 'complicating features' were caused when the 2010 lame-duck Congress voted for Obama's LGBT Law and related policies. Current problems and those yet to come are no more acceptable now than in the midst of a shooting war."

Sandy Rios of Family-Pac and the former head of Concerned Women for America mocked Romney for the “audacity” to say he is more conservative than other candidates while revealing a complete lack of conviction regarding his views on open service in the military:

As the issue of allowing gays to openly serve in the military raged last year, Mitt Romney let it be known he roundly opposed the idea. He was outraged ... incensed. Many conservatives were certain this was the real Mitt revealing himself after years of having to pretend to embrace gay rights as governor of Massachusetts. With this messy business of his position on gay rights out of the way, they could at last breathe a sigh of relief and support the man they thought looked and sounded presidential and had the credentials to turn the economy around.

But now that has all changed. In an interview with the Des Moines Register editorial board last Friday, the former Massachusetts governor explained that it wasn't the concept of having gays openly serve in the military that had troubled him ... only the fact that the change was being made in a time of war. Now that the conflict is over, he would not, as Commander in Chief, do anything to change it.

…

As if to drive his point further, Romney added that Gingrich's "unreliability" hadn't just been 14-15 years ago, but in the last 2-3 years. Yet Mitt Romney's latest leap from conservatism had only taken place a few days prior. What kind of audacity does it take to stand before a news agency editorial board and brag in the face of the evidence that you are the most conservative candidate?

…

One could go further back with Romney's liberal/conservative iterations, but these are current examples which, in the case of gays in the military, goes back not a few years but a few days. Surely it is a quantum leap to assign him the mantle of conservatism in the current race.

Truth and honesty are inconvenient at times, but they are as much a part of conservative values as any position on the economy or national defense. Dishonesty and deceit are basic disqualifiers -- and bend as we may to excuse the inexcusable, in Romney's case, they are very hard to ignore.

Not to be outdone, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association went after Romney and Ron Paul, who voted in favor of repeal last year, calling them “non-starters as candidates”:

If evangelical Christians simply vote their values, there is simply no way they can cast a vote for someone who is in favor of legitimizing homosexual behavior in the military.

In the GOP field, there are just two candidates who support the presence of sexual deviancy in our armed forces: Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

Romney told the editorial board of the Des Moines Register last Friday that he is just fine with sexually aberrant behavior in the military.

…

Bottom line: for values-driven voters who claim to be conservative and to draw their values from the Judeo-Christian tradition, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are both likely to be - and should be - non-starters as candidates. If a voter only claims to be a social conservative but isn’t one in fact, then a vote for Romney or Paul is not likely to be a problem.