Another Conservative Fears DADT Repeal Will Lead to Draft

Last week Kyle reported that Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council feared that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military will damage recruitment to such an extent that the President would have to “bring back the draft.” Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy is now too sounding the alarm that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would lead to the collapse of the volunteer military. In his Washington Times column, Gaffney uses the recent panic about TSA procedures to make his point that the draft will be reinstated if gays serve openly:

Suddenly, just as the Obama-led campaign to foist the radical homosexual agenda on the U.S. armed forces is reaching its denouement, the American people are getting a taste of forced intimacy - and they don't like it. In airports around the country, they are being subjected to intrusions on their personal space by people and machines of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Team Obama's line is that "most" in uniform think there will be no problem, or at least "mixed" good and bad repercussions. But if even an estimated 10 percent choose to leave the service - let alone 40 percent of Marines, who, according to the leakers, think repeal will cause problems - the effect will be traumatic, possibly devastating, for the U.S. armed forces. If tens of thousands choose not to submit and "vote with their feet," as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, has called on them to do, it may become impossible to rely only on volunteers to staff our military.

In that case, a vote for repeal of the 1993 law barring homosexuals from the military amounts to a vote for reinstating the draft.

Gaffney’s column adds to the increasing scare-tactics by right-wing leaders to stop the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell at all costs. Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy has previously allied with vehemently anti-gay groups to prevent the repeal of DADT, and believes that the greatest threat to the military isn’t gays but President Obama, who he called “America’s first Muslim President.” Even though the Pentagon report is expected to show that the vast majority of troops have no problem with gay and lesbians serving openly and even a Sergeant who spoke to Perkins believes that soldiers will “serve anyway” following repeal, the draft drumbeat continues to grow.