'G.I. Joe,' 'husband' called 'the new heroes'

The American military this month is celebrating homosexuality with a series of events, including a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month at the Pentagon, where Brig. Gen. Randy S. Taylor introduced the crowd to his "husband."

This week's event, the fourth such annual celebration of homosexuality in the military to be held at the Pentagon, featured Defense Secretary Ash Carter as the keynote speaker.

Carter said he was "proud" to announce the military's equal-opportunity policy now includes sexual orientation.

Intoning "discrimination of any kind has no place in America's armed forces," the secretary said, "Embracing diversity and inclusion is critical to recruiting and retaining the force of the future."

The policy change will allow homosexuals and other sexual minorities to use the military's chain of command to launch complaints of alleged "discrimination" due to sexual orientation.

The LGBT Pride Month Event also contained a panel discussion with a "gay" Marine officer, a "gay" Army sergeant, a lesbian chaplain and Amanda Simpson, executive director of the Army's Office of Energy Initiatives and a "transgender." Simpson is a civilian employee, as despite the military's ostensible celebration of transgenders, they are still banned from the armed services.

However, even that may change soon. In August 2014, the Defense Department weakened the prohibition on transgenders serving in the military and gave more discretion to the individual services to handle the issue.

The Air Force already has implemented a new policy that makes it more difficult to discharge transgenders, as airmen with gender dysphoria, or who self-identify as transgender, will now have their medical discharges be given an Air Force headquarters review.

Air Force Secretary Deborah James has also stated transgenders should not be automatically disqualified from serving. The Army has also implemented policies making it more difficult to discharge transgenders.

Additionally, activist groups are stepping up their efforts to end the ban on transgenders. In March, the American Military Partner Association, a pro-homosexual and transgender activist group, issued a report in partnership with the Transgender American Veterans Association condemning "outdated military medical policies and regulations [that] prevent transgender people from serving openly and honestly, harming both transgender service members and their families."

Who's to blame for the demand for same-sex "marriage"? Paul Kengor's "Takedown" argues that extreme-left radicals are attacking America's families in their pursuit of "fundamental transformation."

Only a few months later, such rhetoric was being echoed by more mainstream groups. On June 8, the American Medical Association approved a resolution declaring "there is no medically valid reason to exclude transgender individuals from service in the U.S. military."

Furthermore, the resolution slammed current military medical regulations as "out of date with respect to medical consensus about gender identity."

Such a consensus may or may not actually exist. Dr. Paul McHugh, a former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, recently argued a sex change is "biologically impossible" and cited the high suicide rates of post-operative transsexuals as evidence "transgenderism" is a mental disorder.

Such rapid cultural change is driving many Christians out of the American military, who report they feel unwelcome in the new institutional culture. Efforts to expand "tolerance" to homosexuals and transgenders have also led to disciplinary actions taken against military chaplains who hold to traditional views of sexual morality.

Paul Kengor, a university professor, historian and author of "Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage," argues such change results from a combined political and cultural offensive by the "radical left."

He told WND: "What you're seeing here is the Left's and Obama's fundamental transformation of the military. This is the cultural revolution and long march through America's most cherished institutions that the radical left, particularly the cultural Marxists, have long sought. This is a takedown.

"They were very shrewd. They understood that once you captured culture via education, media, and Hollywood, the rest would fall in due course. And as Americans become increasingly secular and individualistic and relativistic, they've been fairly easy prey. The left took the public schools, the universities, media and social media, Hollywood, and now the Boy Scouts and even the military."

As evidence of this deliberate campaign, Kengor cited the media’s celebration of Bruce Jenner's transformation to "Caitlyn" and the recent spate of television shows targeted at children and young people celebrating transgenders.

Kengor observes: "I must say that I'm tempted to congratulate them. They've worked long and hard and patiently at this. Unfortunately, it's just such a shame because they're ruining what was once a great country. The left laughed at Ronald Reagan's description of America as a Shining City Upon a Hill. Well, they can take comfort in the fact that it ain't no Shining City no more."

Kengor believes military culture is simply following the same cultural trends as the rest of society. He notes homosexuality and other sexually deviant behavior was once seen as a reason to deny a security clearance. However, as public morality has shifted, Kengor argues it is impossible to expect the military to remain permanently aloof from society.

"As for military men openly acknowledging gay 'husbands' – hey, why not? Once upon a time in America, such a spousal arrangement would have been a huge security risk inviting instant possibility of blackmail," he said.

"But that's no longer the case in a culture and country where behavior like this is celebrated as a joyous expression of liberation and self-expression. In the new fundamentally transformed America, these two soldiers are no longer security risks; they're cultural icons. They're the new heroes. They are the new G.I. Joes."

Kengor warns Americans the new sexually progressive military is unlikely to produce the kinds of legendary military heroes prior generations of Americans once idolized. Indeed, Kengor says many heroic Americans would find no place in the armed services of today.

"I guess I'll be the one to ask the politically incorrect but obvious question: What would George Patton think of this? Of course, we all know that he was a mere hate-filled homophobe whose abiding anti-marriage-equality bigotry should have forever disqualified him from disserving our military."

More importantly, said Kengor, the transformation of the military into a pro-homosexual and pro-transgender force is only a step toward what he sees as the left's final goal of driving religion entirely out of public life.

"Marriage is within their grasp. What's next? The greatest foe of all: God and religion. A victory there would be the secular left's ideological apotheosis."