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That would mean that the study by the Palm Center of the Williams Institute at UCLA apparently would not consider it a “negative” that two airmen were publicly harassed in a post exchange food court as they were privately discussing their concerns.
Nor would a situation where a chaplain was encouraged by military officials to resign his commission unless he could “get in line with the new policy” be considered a negative.
And not considered a “negative” would be a commander’s refusal to take disciplinary action over a male service member “sexually harassed” another male service member, “through text messages, emails, phone calls and in person confrontations, insisting the two would ‘make a great couple.’”
Because those are just a few of the results of the change from the previous practice in the military in which homosexuals were allowed to serve as long as they did not make a public issue of their sexual lifestyle choice, to a free-for-all in the barracks in which open homosexuality is protected.
According to officials with Chaplain Alliance, there have been those negative results, and others.
“The American armed forces exist to defend our nation, not as social experiment lab in which our troops serve as human subjects,” said Chaplain (Col. Ret.) Ron Crews, the executive director of the alliance. “While many will ignore the negative impacts, or pretend that they don’t exist, threats to our troops’ freedom are mounting.”
WND previously has reported how data was manipulated to make it appear the ranks endorsed the idea of open homosexuality, and how the military simply re-arranged its own rules about public appearances in uniform to allow homosexuals to march in a protest parade in uniform.
Now the chaplains’ organization says it has evidence of a bigotry against those who follow a traditional biblical and military perspective that does not promote homosexuality.
The chaplains organization today said among the situations that have developed:
- Senior military officials have allowed personnel in favor of repeal to speak to media while those who have concerns have been ordered to be silent.
- Service members engaged in homosexual behavior protested a service school’s open doors policy for all students that prohibited the closing of room doors for sexual purposes. The protesters were upset because they claimed that they had a right to participate in sexual behavior with their same-sex roommates.
- A senior chaplain was stripped of his authority over the chapel under his charge because, in accordance with federal law, he proclaimed the chapel as a “sacred space” where marriage or marriage-like ceremonies would only be between one man and one woman.
- Same-sex ceremonies have been performed at military chapels, including one at Fort Polk, La., a state that constitutionally defines marriage as one man and one woman.
- The Navy has allowed sailors openly engaged in homosexual behavior to choose their bunkmates.
The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty said it has worked with members of Congress to enact legislation to protect freedom of conscience for chaplains and those they serve. The proposal has passed the House of Representatives but is awaiting action in the Senate.
The group is an organization of chaplain endorsers, the faith groups that provide chaplains for the U.S. military. The endorsers speak for more than 2,000 chaplains in the armed forces now.
The NBC report had cited the Palm Center’s conclusions that there have been no negative impacts.
“Our conclusion … is that DADT repeal has had no overall negative impact on military readiness or its component dimensions, including cohesion, recruitment, retention, assaults, harassment or morale,” the study said.
The organization posts on its website titles such as “How We Won: Progressive Lessons from the Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and its research topics include “Gays and Lesbians At War” and “Implementation-Policy Transition.”
The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was adopted by President Bill Clinton and disallowed openly homosexual behavior in the ranks. Under Obama, that’s now allowed.
EDITOR’S NOTE: At the request of one congressional member of the House Armed Services Committee, WND sent to committee members, including Rep. Duncan Hunter, as well as staffers, 150 copies of the special Whistleblower issue, “DROPPING THE ‘H’-BOMB: As Obama and Congress force open homosexuality on America’s military, soldiers are fighting back.” Get your copy of this power-packed Whistleblower issue that has been widely acclaimed by Medal of Honor recipients and other military heroes as the best single argument against repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
The Center for Military Readiness also previously reported on a “chilling trend” in sexual assault in the military, documenting that the military itself confirmed that violent attacks and rapes, which includes male-on-male rapes, “have nearly doubled since 2006, rising from 663 to 1,313 last year.
The center, an independent public policy group specializing in the military and social issues, also has documented the misleading information distributed by some members of the Obama administration in order to push for open homosexuality.
Just recently, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee demanded that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reveal whether he will allow uniformed members of the military to participate in more political events like a “gay” pride event in San Diego.
As WND reported, at least one member of the U.S. Air Force was authorized by commanding officers to march in the San Diego event in uniform, upsetting a generations-old policy. Less than 24 hours after the WND report, the Department of Defense granted blanket permission for members of the armed forces to participate in the Saturday parade in uniform.
After WND contacted branches of the military and the Department of Defense to inquire about the authorization, the DoD said it made the decision because the event was getting national attention.
The DoD delivered its statement to LGBT Weekly, a San Diego publication for the “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.”
However, while the DoD statement expanded the authorization for the San Diego event, it appeared to limit it to the single event.
“I respectfully request a detailed explanation of the rational[e] you used to grant this ‘one time waiver’ of DOD policy, who requested the waiver, why this waiver was considered justified over other requests, and whether you are considering other exceptions to current policy.”
The senator noted that under “current standing DOD Directive 1344.10 and separate service department regulations, service members ‘shall not march or ride in a partisan political parade.’
“These directives and regulations are unambiguous and straight forward with the intent of preserving the military’s apolitical stance. This apolitical stance has served our military well and earned the respect of not just Americans but nations around the world as being a professional organization, set aside from politics and agendas,” Inhofe continued.
He noted that the abandonment of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy allows homosexuals to serve openly in the U.S. military.
“However, allowing service members to participate in a gay pride parade, while in uniform, is expressly prohibited by DOD policy. Under the current policy, DOD has used administrative action against active duty members that have participated in other political activities while in uniform,” he said.
“If the Navy can punish a chaplain for participating in a pro-life event or a Marine participating in a political rally, it stands to reason that DOD should maintain the same standard and preclude service members in uniform from marching in a gay pride parade,” he said.
Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness said the decision to allow an in-uniform protest parade participation must have come from the White House, as officers in public affairs units would not have such authority.
“It’s coming from President Obama, and he doesn’t seem to understand you don’t have special interest pressure groups in the military,” she told WND. “Groups that set themselves apart to advocate a special interest agenda.”
She continued: “In the military you don’t get to express yourself in your personal way, with dress or behavior. There is a set of regulations, the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Many things that are legal for civilians are not legal in the military for a good reason. You have to wear a uniform. You don’t get to choose how you’re going to wear your hair.
“The Pentagon is on thin ice,” she said. “They’re showing favoritism to LGBT activities in the military, and that is not helpful to the armed forces as a whole. This looks like a presidential response to a political faction. The LGBT left expects this.”
Further, a federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit has been filed against the U.S. Navy over the manipulation of “gay” data used to convince Congress to overturn the centuries-old ban in the U.S. military on open homosexuality.
The manipulation of the data was confirmed by the government itself, which in an inspector general’s report marked “For Official Use Only” said numbers were combined to present the image that members of the military approved of Barack Obama’s plan for open homosexuality.
It was the military’s original and now-suspect report that famously was quoted as affirming “70 percent” of the nation’s military members believe the repeal of the long-standing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” practice of allowing homosexuals to serve as long as they kept their sexual lifestyle choices to themselves would have either “a neutral or positive impact on unit cohesion, readiness, effectiveness and morale.”
However, the IG documents uncovered by Donnelly revealed the actual figures for military members were: those who believed the change would impact units “very positively” (6.6 percent), “positively” (11.8 percent), “mixed” (32.1 percent), “negatively” (18.7 percent), “very negatively” (10.9 percent) and “no effect” (19.9 percent).
The only way the 70 percent figure can be reached is to combine “very positively,” “positively,” “mixed” and “no effect.” But this combination counts people with “neutral positions” as favoring the change, Donnelly reported.
Donnelly explained that taking those same figures and putting them on the other side, that is, lumping them with “negatively” and “very negatively,” would produce a total of almost 82 percent of the soldiers who believe the results of the change would be “negative or neutral.”
The IG report uncovered by Donnelly said exactly that:
We considered that the primary source’s likely pro-repeal sentiment was further demonstrated by his/her inclusion of the key 70 percent figure in the information provided to the Washington Post. … Had [the source] desired to further an anti-repeal bias for the article, he/she could likewise have combined four results categories from that same survey question to conclude that “82 percent of respondents said the effect of repealing the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy would be negative, mixed or no effect.”
It was the Thomas More Law Center that announced a federal FOIA lawsuit against the Navy, seeking to obtain records that are expected to show intentional deception by the Pentagon “to gain congressional support for repeal of the 1993 law regarding open homosexual conduct in the military, usually called ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”
The lawsuit is based on the IG report obtained by Donnelly, “which suggested that a distorted Pentagon study of homosexuals in the military was produced and leaked solely to persuade Congress to lift the ban on open homosexuality.”
Erin Mersino, the attorney handling the blockbuster case, said the organization already has tried to obtain information.
“The Department of Defense and the Department of the Navy have failed to produce a single document despite numerous FOIA requests over the last two years for information to uncover the truth surrounding the congressional repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” she said.
The case was launched in U.S. District Court in Washington on behalf of Donnelly and the Center for Military Readiness. It seeks information to determine the extent to which the Navy engaged “in a campaign of deception as suggested by the Inspector General’s Report.”
In one side effect that rebounded on the White House, a Senate committee, in an attempt to ensure the law conforms to the new policy, voted to repeal the ban in the military on bestiality, an issue that White House press secretary Jay Carney didn’t consider a serious question.
The Senate quickly backtracked when its work was revealed.
That documents how the co-chairman of the commission working on the assessment of the impact on the military, Jeh Johnson, “read portions of ‘an early draft’ of the executive summary … to a former news anchor, a close personal friend visiting Mr. Johnson’s home” three days before service members even were given the survey.
“Contrary to most news accounts, the ‘Comprehensive Review Working Group’ process was not a ‘study,’” Donnelly told WND. “Its purpose was to circumvent and neutralize military opposition to repeal of the law.”
She described the study “was a publicly funded pre-scripted production put on just for show.”
“The … report, completed on April 8, 2011, reveals improper activities and deception that misled members of Congress in order ‘to gain momentum in support of a legislative change during the ‘lame duck’ session of Congress following the November 2, 2010, elections,’” she wrote.
Donnelly explained that days before the survey was distributed, Johnson “was seeking advice from a ‘former news anchor’ on how to write the report’s executive summary more ‘persuasively.’”
Further, “The DoD IG report concluded that someone who ‘had a strongly emotional attachment to the issue’ and ‘likely a pro-repeal agenda’ violated security rules and leaked selected, half-true information to the Washington Post,” she explained.
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