Less than a year after dropping the nation’s 200-plus-year ban on homosexuals serving in the military, the Department of Defense (DOD) used the occasion of June as “gay pride” month to celebrate the inclusion of gays and lesbians into America’s armed forces.
According to the DOD’s official military newspaper Stars and Stripes, as the Pentagon made plans to “recognize gay and lesbian troops later in June,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta released a video message June 15 in which he thanked homosexual service members for their service to the nation — both during and since the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), the Defense Department policy that had officially banned homosexuals from military service.
“As we recognize pride month, I want to personally thank all of our gay and lesbian service members, LGBT civilians and their families for their dedicated service to our country,” Panetta said. “Before the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ you faithfully served your country with professionalism and courage. And just like your fellow service members, you put your country before yourself. And now after the repeal, you can be proud of serving your country and be proud of who you are in uniform.”
Panetta went on to intimate that the DOD is bending over backwards to make sure that homosexual service members are getting extra-special consideration in the now “gay”-friendly armed forces. “Diversity is one of our greatest strengths,” Panetta said, alarming those who thought defending the nation from foreign invasion and attack was of utmost importance. “During pride month and every month, let’s celebrate our rich diversity and renew our enduring commitment to equality for all.”
To prove that it has the interests of “gay” soldiers at heart, the DOD has given its blessing to a magazine published by OutServe, an organization composed of actively serving homosexual military personnel. The group’s spokesman, Air Force 1st Lt. Josh Seefried, applauded the video message from Panetta, calling it a “tribute to our core military values: respect and integrity.” Seefried said that “if there is any remaining doubt that the military has executed DADT repeal with excellence, and that LGBT people are serving our country with honor, Secretary Panetta has firmly put that to rest. This is leadership directly from the top.”
Since the official repeal of DADT in September 2011, the integration of an openly homosexual sub-culture within America’s armed forces has moved forward at breakneck speed. The once-underground Outserve activist group has been given unofficial approval by DOD and claims that its membership has now doubled to more than 5,500 members. Shortly after the repeal of DADT the group held a national convention in Las Vegas, followed by a “family” themed conference in Washington, D.C.
Similarly, at West Point, once a bastion of squared-away military discipline, “the alumni gay advocacy group Knights Out was able to hold the first installment in March of what is intended to be an annual dinner in recognition of gay and lesbian graduates and Army cadets,” reported the Associated Press. And “gay students at the U.S. Naval Academy were able to take same-sex dates to the academy’s Ring Dance for third-year midshipmen.”
Observed OutServe’s Seefried of the increasing saturation of America’s military with homosexual sensibilities: “I don’t think it’s just moving along smoothly — I think it’s accelerating faster than we even thought the military would as far as progress goes.”
As reported by The New American, the DADT ban on homosexuals in the military, enacted in 1993 and signed into law by President Clinton, was repealed by Congress and President Barack Obama’s signature in December 2010, and officially implemented nearly a year later. As Obama’s signature dried on the repeal, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness noted that “virtually every military expert has admitted” that America’s military would suffer serious problems with the integration of homosexual personnel, in terms of morale and military readiness. “We are headed into some very difficult times in the armed forces,” she said. “It has nothing to do with weapons, planes, systems, or hardware. It has to do with morale. It has to do with culture of the military.”
Donnelly pointed out that the repeal had everything to do with delivering on “President Barack Obama’s political promises to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) activist groups. The high-powered campaign for gays in the military was fueled by sophistry, administration-coordinated deception, faux ‘research’ from LGBT activists, and misuse of the military’s own culture of obedience.”
Colonel Ron Ray (USMC, retired), a decorated veteran of the Vietnam conflict and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration, told The New American that since 1775 homosexual conduct has been considered incompatible with American military service. He pointed out that the military’s standard of Exemplary Conduct “demands self-sacrifice, virtue, honor, subordination, patriotism, and uniformity above any self interest.”
Ray added that those standards of military conduct have not changed. “The requirement for exemplary conduct is not optional,” he said. “It burdens those in authority, as stated in the Exemplary Conduct standard, ‘to guard against and suppress dissolute and immoral practices.’”
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, which has taken the lead in calling the Pentagon to account for caving in on DADT, said that America’s military “exists for only one purpose — to fight and win wars.” But, he added, it is rapidly becoming “a tool in reshaping social attitudes regarding human sexuality. Using the military to advance a liberal social agenda will only do harm to the military’s ability to fulfill its mission.”
Photo: In this June 13, 2012 file photo, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington: AP Images
