OPINION:
President Obama and his friends in the media want the public to think Americans serving in uniform are just fine and dandy with homosexual conduct in the military. This view is being spread through a series of selective leaks from the Pentagon’s Comprehensive Review Working Group, which is putting the finishing touches on a report regarding the future of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.
Mr. Obama has promised the fringe special-interest activists who helped him win the 2008 election that he will deliver what for them is the symbolic victory of opening barracks to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and the transgendered (LGBT). Last week, the Supreme Court rejected an attempt to use the courts to bypass the legislative process to implement this radical change. After the big GOP win in the elections, ramming the LGBT priority through the lame-duck Congress appears to be the sole remaining option - and an unlikely one at that.
To improve the odds, anonymous sources have been claiming to the administration’s newsroom allies that 70 percent of troops wouldn’t object to overturning the long-standing ban on homosexual conduct, citing draft versions of the Pentagon survey. The spin makes it sound as if the troops are fully behind Mr. Obama’s campaign pledge.
Those who know better say this reporting has created a false impression. “I looked very closely at the stories,” working group co-chairman Jeh C. Johnson wrote in an Oct. 30 e-mail obtained by The Washington Times. “It seemed obvious to me that whoever spoke to the press was not very familiar with the actual results. The account of the survey presented was convoluted and confused, and it clearly did not come from someone who knew what they were talking about.” Mr. Johnson was responding to questions posed by Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelly.
The Defense Department is enabling these false impressions to linger. “The full report will be made public for all to review early next month,” military spokesman Geoff Morrell said in a statement. “Until then, no one at the Pentagon will comment on its contents.”
The unchecked leaks conceal the larger problem with the working-group effort, which has focused not on whether the 1993 law regarding homosexuals in the military - usually called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” - should be repealed, but how a repeal should be implemented. As sources in the military “listening sessions” have stated in letters to The Washington Times, working-group members have promoted the Obama administration’s social revolution from the top down. Military personnel whose religious beliefs conflict with the LGBT agenda will find themselves no longer welcome in the military. Even if the 70 percent number were accurate, that would imply nearly a third of the troops would be on the unwanted list.
Forcing so many troops to either undergo special “diversity training” or leave the military would be devastating at a time when resources already are stretched thin. These alternatives further expose the ideological objective in play. This push has never been about making the military stronger and more effective. It is a costly political payoff from a liberal administration that’s acting as if it loathes the armed forces. The new Congress should make clear early on that it intends to keep the current ban in place.
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