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Gays and the military

By Elaine Donnelly
January 3, 2008

The last of two installments.

Democratic presidential candidates want to impose the full weight of San Francisco-style liberal ideology upon the armed forces. You would never know it, however, given the silence or equivocation of Republicans on military social issues.

As noted in this space yesterday, the Center for Military Readiness has been conducting a non-partisan survey to determine where the presidential candidates stand on military issues affecting discipline and morale. Candidates who did not respond to survey questions, including all the Democrats, missed an opportunity to proclaim sound, responsible priorities for the military. Previous statements, however, indicate that any Democrat winning the White House would turn the Pentagon into a laboratory for social experimentation by civilian ideologues. These include feminists and homosexualists — determined activists who demand government power to impose the homosexual agenda on all institutions of American life.

Democrats condone the pure feminism of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, defined by the issue of women in land combat. In 2005, then-House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, California Republican, spearheaded legislation to restore Army compliance with Defense Department regulations exempting female soldiers from placement in or near direct ground combat (infantry) battalions. Mrs. Clinton and feminist colleagues countered with a resolution framing this as a feminist issue, which encouraged the Pentagon to continue violating regulations and laws requiring congressional notice and oversight.

Unauthorized, incremental repeal of women's exemptions from land combat will eventually affect the Marine Corps and Special Operations Forces, forcing them to cope with predictable consequences: gender-normed training standards to create the illusion of equality, higher injury rates, pregnancies, and disciplinary issues that hurt readiness and morale. Eventually, ACLU lawyers will file another lawsuit challenging young women's exemption from Selective Service registration.

With women in land combat, the ACLU will win.

Parents whose daughters are denied college loans for failure to register will wonder why these issues were not debated in 2008. They should know that Mrs. Clinton, Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina favor Selective Service registration for young women, or participation in mandatory national service.

Mr. Obama is being advised by former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, an outspoken advocate of women serving on submarines. If an Obama administration mandates "career opportunities" for female sailors on cramped submarines, which operate with constantly recycled air that elevates risks of birth defects, submarine commanders may have to disrupt undersea missions by conducting hazardous mid-ocean evacuations of pregnant sailors.

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