The radical Christian right has infiltrated the military. Is this the real reason for stalling DADT?

[bluedawg12]

This was true in 2006 and it came up again tonight on Bill Maher’s show, with Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibi and author Naomi Kleine discussing this as still on going in 2009.

Passing out bibles in Afghanistan and wearing tee shirts that say, “Crusade.”

They said that the Air Force Academy was more like a seminary these days.

Also, many women are getting out of the military, as sexual harassment remains a problem.

Can this be part of the real reason for the DADT foot dragging?

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20061231_chris_hedges_americas_holy_warriors/

Chris Hedges: America’s Holy Warriors
Posted on Dec 31, 2006

By Chris Hedges

Editor’s note: The former New York Times Mideast Bureau chief warns that the radical Christian right is coming dangerously close to its goal of co-opting the country’s military and law enforcement.


The drive by the Christian right to take control of military chaplaincies, which now sees radical Christians holding roughly 50 percent of chaplaincy appointments in the armed services and service academies, is part of a much larger effort to politicize the military and law enforcement. This effort signals the final and perhaps most deadly stage in the long campaign by the radical Christian right to dismantle America’s open society and build a theocratic state. A successful politicization of the military would signal the end of our democracy.

During the past two years I traveled across the country to research and write the book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” I repeatedly listened to radical preachers attack as corrupt and godless most American institutions, from federal agencies that provide housing and social welfare to public schools and the media. But there were two institutions that never came under attack—the military and law enforcement. While these preachers had no interest in communicating with local leaders of other faiths, or those in the community who did not subscribe to their call for a radical Christian state, they assiduously courted and flattered the military and police. They held special services and appreciation days for all four branches of the armed services and for various law enforcement agencies. They encouraged their young men and women to enlist or to join the police or state troopers. They sought out sympathetic military and police officials to attend church events where these officials were lauded and feted for their Christian probity and patriotism. They painted the war in Iraq not as an occupation but as an apocalyptic battle by Christians against Islam, a religion they regularly branded as “satanic.” All this befits a movement whose final aesthetic is violence. It also befits a movement that, in the end, would need the military and police forces to seize power in American society.

<snip>

Dan Cooper, an undersecretary of veterans affairs, says in the video that his weekly prayer sessions are “more important than doing the job.” Maj. Gen. Jack Catton says that his being an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a “wonderful opportunity” to evangelize men and women setting defense policy. “My first priority is my faith,” he says. “I think it’s a huge impact…. You have many men and women who are seeking God’s counsel and wisdom as they advise the chairman and the secretary of defense.”

Col. Ralph Benson, a Pentagon chaplain, says in the video: “Christian Embassy is a blessing to the Washington area, a blessing to our capital; it’s a blessing to our country. They are interceding on behalf of people all over the United States, talking to ambassadors, talking to people in the Congress, in the Senate, talking to people in the Pentagon, and being able to share the message of Jesus Christ in a very, very important time in our world is winning a worldwide war on terrorism. What more do we need than Christian people leading us and guiding us, so, they’re needed in this hour.”

The group has burrowed deep inside the Pentagon. It hosts weekly Bible sessions with senior officers, by its own count some 40 generals, and weekly prayer breakfasts each Wednesday from 7 to 7:50 a.m. in the executive dining room as well as numerous outreach events to, in the words of the organization, “share and sharpen one another in their quest to bridge the gap between faith and work.”

<snip>

[One_Life_To_Give]

1. Should be reason to expedite it's removal

Would be a terrible thing for a secular nation to have a military be otherwise.

I could care less if some soldiers wish to participate in Bible studies etc. But when there is a mission everyone there is a US Soldier. There is no Christian, Athiest, Gay hyphenated soldiers. One unit, one country, one leader, one identity. Everyone is a Professional and they all need to act like it.

[bluedawg12]

2. They are alarming and in very high places.

[Starry Messenger]

3. .

[bluedawg12]

4. It was true in '06 and true today - how could they even admit this?

This would make sense about the reason for the foot dragging. It's not safe.

It's pretty alarming. They may need to clean house?

[Starry Messenger]

5. I've been meaning to read the Chris Hedges book.

I think I'm going to pick it up this week. I've been studying different facets of RW dominionist infiltration in other areas but hadn't read up on how it might have affected the military. I'm sure there is a case to be made though. (And the Blackhawk/Eric & Ilsa Prince/Yes on 8 donations should be a huge red flag on how these ties can affect legislation). I have to get ready for work right now, but I'll be coming back to this.

[bluedawg12]

6. This is important and may signal a strategy change

let's just for the moment he is boxed in, let's assume that there is a significant infiltration by political ideologues who frame their rw point of view in theology, using the word rather loosely, as theology would imply the spirit and not just the letter of say, scripture.

Then, maybe it's time for a different approach?

If he truly meant his campaign promise, then upon election he had a little heart to heart with Gates and learned that there was real and significant infiltration as has been asserted, then, we need to give him cover and support.

Do we really have his back when, if he were to read DU, he would see some throwing up the exact same hurdles as the rightwing?

Maybe the new approach for gays and real allies should be:

I support President Obama and his pledge to repeal DADT.

[sui generis]

7. the radical gays have infiltrated the military

I'm thinking we should make the whole Xtian thing DADT. War is war.

[bluedawg12]

10. DADT for the proselytizers is not a bad idea.

It sure doesn't help when chaplains say things like this a is a crusade.:eyes:

edit splleing :rofl:

[imdjh]

8. Does this mean that the whorehouses in the Far East don't know when the Navy is in port?

I remember it being in the news sometime ago that the Navy wives were in a huff because an article on a whorehouse in or near Australia that had to close down for a rest after some big US Navy ship had been in port for three days.

[bluedawg12]

11. They're too busy screwing over gay rights.

:evilgrin:

[Meeker Morgan]

9. Was that the reason in 1993? n/t

[bluedawg12]

12. Great question! Pretty much just homophobia.

DADT was “based on nothing” but “our own prejudices and our own fears.” (1)

Sam Nunn:

1.) Homophobe
2.) Endless hearings
3.) Homophobe
4.) Stacked the deck during congressional hearings with anti-gay testimony.

Saying that Sam Nunn had any interest in fairness for gays in the military is like saying, "Dick Cheney likes freedom and information." :hurts:

...the assiduous lobbying by the religious right, foreshadowing their subsequent efforts against marriage equality; the dramatic congressional hearings and press conferences held by Nunn, culminating deep inside the USS Baton Rouge submarine to show just how tight the quarters were. But the most amazing revelation? Even as they ignored a 500-page RAND Corp. report commissioned by the Pentagon showing that open service wouldn’t affect military readiness, generals watched a video circulated by a Christian producer that graphically described gay sexual practices. (2)

http://www.advocate.com/letters_detail_ektid53895.asp
Sam Nunn, the great homophobe who rebelled when President Clinton tried to normalize military service for gays. It was Nunn who forced the Don't Ask, Don't Tell compromise. He first waged a nationally televised campaign against gays in the military, visiting submarines to interview military people who, put on the spot, said they were anti-gay, and so he did much for the cause of homophobia.

http://tech.mit.edu/V113/N16/nunn.16w.html

Volume 113 >> Issue 16 : Tuesday, March 30, 1993PDF of This Issue
Nunn Offers Compromise on Military's Gay Ban
By Martin Kasindorf
Newsday
WASHINGTON

As the Senate Armed Services Committee began hearings Monday on President Clinton's plan to end the prohibition of gays and lesbians serving in the military, committee chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) offered an olive branch on the explosive issue.

Nunn, while siding with the uniformed Pentagon leadership against Clinton on maintaining the longtime ban, suggested in a "CBS This Morning" interview that an interim six-month compromise reached in January could be made permanent.

If the White House agreed, such an arrangement would continue a new policy of not asking would-be recruits about their sexual orientation. But service members who then went public about their orientation would be subject to administrative discharge, as they were for decades before Clinton announced plans to change the policy by executive order.

Clinton ordered the Pentagon to draft an order by July, preventing discharge for the mere status of being gay but subjecting all service members to a rigid code of personal conduct.

Nunn, foreseeing problems of equal treatment for "hand-holding," "kissing" gays and non-gays under a new code of conduct, said that "if people keep their private behavior private, if they don't declare and advertise their private behavior," they are currently able to stay in the service as long as they perform their duties. The interim compromise "may be a pretty good place to end up," he said.

Gay-rights groups, who attended Monday's low-key opening hearing in large numbers, rejected Nunn's overture. Thomas Stoddard, coordinator of the gay and lesbian Campaign for Military Service, said that under the proposed compromise, efforts to "hunt people out of the service" for their private views would continue. "That is a civil rights question," Stoddard said. "The principle here must be parity -- treatment based only on performance."

(1) Creators of Military Gay Ban Tell Author It Was "Based on Nothing"

http://www.palmcenter.org/press/dadt/releases/Creators+ ...

(2)http://www.palmcenter.org/press/dadt/in_print/Battling+...

Battling the Military Ban
In a bracing new account, historian Nathaniel Frank shows how “don’t ask, don’t tell” has utterly failed.
Source: The Advocate at advocate.com

[bluedawg12]

13. Anyone remember this prize phobe moment? Peter Pace, Gen. Ret., phobe?

http://www.beyondhomophobia.com/blog/page/3/


June 21, 2008President Honors General Who Exposed DADT’s Real RootsPosted at 12:53 pm (Pacific Time)

On Thursday, President Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to General Peter Pace, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “for his steadfast leadership, his selfless devotion to keeping Americans safe, and his great courage.”

The award was greeted with widespread criticism because of remarks made by Gen. Pace last year about homosexuality and the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy.

In a March 12, 2007, interview with the Chicago Tribune, he likened homosexuality to adultery and asserted, “I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts…. I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is okay to be immoral in any way.”

His remarks sparked outrage among congressional Democrats and gay advocacy groups. According to a National Public Radio report, senior Pentagon officials privately disclosed that the Secretary of Defense summoned Pace to his office after the comments were made public and demanded that he issue a statement. The following day, the Pentagon released the General’s statement, in which he downplayed the importance of his own moral views, but did not apologize for his remarks:

I made two points in support of the policy during the interview. One, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” allows individuals to serve this nation; and two, it does not make a judgment about the morality of individual acts. In expressing my support for the current policy, I also offered some personal opinions about moral conduct. I should have focused more on my support of the policy and less on my personal moral views.

Six months later, shortly before retiring, Gen. Pace reiterated his sentiments at a September Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. Saying he sought to clarify his earlier remarks, Pace noted that there are “wonderful Americans who happen to be homosexual serving in the military.” He continued:

We need to be very precise then, about what I said wearing my stars and being very conscious of it…. And that is, very simply, that we should respect those who want to serve the nation but not through the law of the land, condone activity that, in my upbringing, is counter to God’s law.

<snip>

Rather than trying to justify DADT on bogus factual grounds, Gen. Pace gave the world a refreshingly honest account of the real reasons why the US government still clings to the policy. By highlighting the moral worldview on which it is based, he showed that the policy is mainly about religious beliefs and longstanding prejudices, not the laundry list of concerns about the practical impact of a policy change that are routinely cited by DADT defenders.

Of course, it may not have been Gen. Pace’s intention to provide such clarity about the real roots of DADT. But perhaps he nevertheless deserves recognition for it.

And, since past Medal of Freedom awardees from within the Bush administration have included former CIA Director George Tenet, former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer, and Gen. Tommy Franks — all of whom have been strongly criticized for their roles in the current Administration’s early Iraq decisionmaking and policies — perhaps Gen. Pace is in the right company.

:grr: