 Barack Obama |
Just days after homosexuals announced plans to hold parties on military bases across the U.S. to celebrate the repeal of the nation’s longstanding “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy of mandatory privacy for sexual preferences among military members, a letter has surfaced from two members of Congress pointing out that the Department of Defense still hasn’t fulfilled its obligations to prepare for the change.
The letter is from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., and Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., the chairman of the personnel subcommittee.
It’s addressed to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, whose media office declined to respond to a WND request for comment.
“We now understand that certain regulations and policies necessary for implementation will have to undergo a review and comment period before they can be effective and that this period is not scheduled to begin until Sept. 20th,” the congressmen told Panetta.
“The need for review and comment before these regulations and policies can be effective directly contravenes the July 22 certifications. The department is not ready to implement the repeal because all the policies and regulations necessary for the transition are not yet final,” the congressmen said.
The comments concerned the July “certification” by the military and President Obama that the department “has prepared the necessary policies and regulations to exercise repeal.” The repeal of the policy would mean that homosexuals in the military would not be told to keep their sexual preferences private.
However, since those rules and regulations even today remain unavailable, the congressmen said the implementation of the repeal must be delayed.
“We trust that you will see the risk of moving forward with repeal without giving service members and their leaders adequate time to study, understand and prepare themselves to implement the revised policies and regulations they will need to be successful,” the letter said.
“We believe that a delay in the effective date of the repeal until DOD managers have fully resolved all the questions emerging from the review and comment process would be the most responsible decision.”
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, the homosexual activist group that days earlier had announced plans to sponsor celebrations for homosexual members of the military, immediately attacked the congressmen.
“This is another example of the hardcore opposition attempting to delay or undo ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal,” claimed SLDN spokesman Aubrey Sarvia. “I expect they will continue to look for openings to deny gay and lesbian service members the same rights and dignity as their straight counterparts.
“The statute only requires that the new regulations be prepared – not issued – before certification,” Sarvia said.
However, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness said the “stunning” letter is just confirmation that the “certification” by Panetta, Obama and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen was “not complete or accurate.”
“President Obama made a political promise to LGBT activists, and Defense Department appointees have created a shaky house of cards that is about to collapse,” she said. “Congress has the right to review regulations defining the president’s San Francisco military.”
She noted that among the issues that remain vague are personal privacy, marriage benefits and religious conscience rights for members of the military.
“On the thorniest of issues, Pentagon witnesses repeatedly answered ‘I don’t know,'” she said. “Taking advantage of the administration’s ‘Don’t ask, we won’t tell’ attitude, gay activist groups are demanding swift imposition of LGBT policies that contradict previous assurances that the administration gave to Congress. The Pentagon keeps promising, for example, that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) will preclude same-sex marriage benefits and associated costs.
“These assurances, however, are not credible. The Obama Justice Department has joined with gay activists in demanding that federal courts declare the DOMA to be unconstitutional, and the Pentagon will not oppose inevitable lawsuits with arguments contrary to the Justice Department,” she said.
Among the concerns are family housing, commissaries, exchanges, medical facilities, joint duty assignments, deployment exemptions, travel privileges, targeted recruiting and participation in “gay” pride parades.
“On July 28, Defense Department officials allowed HASC members to briefly see copies of senior military leaders’ memoranda regarding the repeal, but not retain them for official records and public release. The administration is playing keep-away games with documents that McKeon and Wilson say should be public,” Donnelly said.
“Deceptive tactics used to pass and enforce the LGBT law should be made public, and the next president and Congress should resolve to take our military back.”
SLDN earlier said it expects to sponsor festivities for homosexuals in the military to celebrate the change that would allow them to publicly state their sexual lifestyles.
“Many service members want to attend these celebrations, and some might want to speak at them,” the group advised earlier this week. “The extent and type of participation will depend on the nature of the event as defined under military rules.”
“We expect that most of the DADT repeal celebrations will be just that – celebrations of the repeal of a bad law. No special rules apply to attendance at or participation in such events,” the organization said.
In approving the plan, the military and the White House did not even mention a study by the government itself that concluded the “fix” was in for the promotion of homosexuality in the military whether it would create damage or not.
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That 33-page report, uncovered by the Center for Military Readiness, is marked “For Official Use Only” and describes an “Investigation of improper disclosure of For Official Use Only information from the Comprehensive Review Working Group draft report.”
It reveals that the inspector general of the Department of Defense concludes that the fix – maybe even handed down by the White House – was in before the military ever started asking soldiers and sailors about how opening the ranks to homosexuals would affect the nation’s defense.
It was that 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 inspector general documents how the co-chairman of the commission working on the assessment, 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.
A source provided the IG report, which aimed to determine who prematurely released information about the study, to Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness. Donnelly analyzed the documentation and warned that it suggests Congress was deceived, probably deliberately, by those with a pro-repeal agenda.
Congress then voted during its lame-duck session last winter for the repeal.
“Contrary to most news accounts, the ‘Comprehensive Review Working Group’ process was not a ‘study,'” she told WND. “Its purpose was to circumvent and neutralize military opposition to repeal of the law.”
She said, “The vaunted DoD ‘Survey of the Troop’s was pre-scripted even before the survey began.
“The DoD Inspector General report revealed that misleading survey results, which obscured the strong opposition of 60 percent of combat troops and 67 percent of Marines, were prematurely and improperly leaked to the Washington Post in order to promote the campaign to repeal the 1993 law.
“Panetta is beginning his term as Defense Secretary by letting down military men, women, and families who were led to believe that their views would be heard and respected. Instead, trusting personnel who participated in the 2010 surveys and focus groups in good faith were misused as props to create the impression that military people ‘don’t care’ about this issue,” she said.
“History will hold accountable President Obama, members of the previous lame-duck Congress, and gay activists who misused the federal courts in order to impose LGBT law and policies that will undermine morale and readiness in the all-volunteer force,” she said.
Donnelly explained that days before the distribution of the survey – supposedly to determine whether having open homosexuality in the ranks would be a detriment – 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.
That was the “70 percent” figure that has been discussed as the percentage of active-duty and reserve troops “not concerned about repeal of the law.”
“The DoD did not correct the unauthorized ‘spin,’ which was widely publicized and cited on the floor during Senate debate. The ultimate result of this travesty was a rushed vote to repeal the law regarding homosexuals in the military.”
However, the actual responses were that military members who believe the change would impact units “very positively” totaled 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. Likewise, the results could be portrayed as 82 percent who believed it would have a negative or neutral impact.
The change is not coming without resistance. An organization called RepealResistNet said the “Slow Death of US Military Begins on One Week.”
“One of the most wrenching events in U.S. military history is scheduled to occur on September 20,” a newsletter from the group said.
“Now, the tiny minority that defines itself by a compulsion to commit sodomy in specific violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice may have won a big battle. But they can’t be allowed to win this war for the very survival of America as given to us by God and our Founding Fathers,” the organization said.
The organization stepped to the edge of the issue, questioning whether “illegal/immoral” laws are to be obeyed.
“America’s Founding Fathers, drawing heavily on the writings of Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero, brought forward his warnings against legislators who undertake to pass laws which violate what are so brilliantly recognized as the ‘laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,'” the organization said. “Cicero nails that lame-duck Congress, desperately rushing to enact and inflict a corrupt agenda before a duly-elected Republican majority House. of Representatives can be seated, along with Republican reinforcements in the Senate.”
The commentary quote Cicero: “But the most foolish notion of all is the belief that everything is just which is found in the customs or laws of nations. … What of the many deadly, the many pestilential statutes which nations put in force? These no more deserve to be called laws than the rules of a band of robbers might pass in their assembly.”
The organization said, “We believe that lawful resistance to the immoral/illegal/unnatural/unGodly imposition of open homosexuality on the military is called for.”
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was a policy ordered by former President Clinton after Congress passed a law banning homosexuality in the military. Under the Clinton policy, if homosexual soldiers didn’t make a public issue of their sexual lifestyle, the military would not make inquiries about it, despite the ban.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: At the request of one congressional member of the House Armed Services Committee, in early April 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.”
