by CHQ Staff
Sometimes there are issues upon which conservative opinion and principle diverges and the conservative movement has no consensus – what constitutes “free trade” might fall into that category. However, we can find no divergence of principle on the issues raised by the Democrats’ recent passage of H. Res. 124, a bill urging the military hierarchy to disobey lawful presidential directives on transgenderism and military service.
Five House Republicans joined Democrats in voting for this abomination of constitutional order, military discipline and common sense.
Republican Representatives Fitzpatrick, Hollingsworth, Hurd (TX), Katko and Reed all voted with the Democrats to strongly urge the Department of Defense to not reinstate President Trump’s ban on transgender members of the Armed Forces and “to maintain an inclusive policy allowing qualified transgender Americans to enlist and serve in the Armed Forces.”
Never mind that courts have found there is no right to serve in the military. This is nothing less than Democrats urging an overthrow of the constitutional order that provides for civilian control of the military through the Article II designation of the President as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.
That five Republicans would join Democrats in such an anti-constitutional usurpation of presidential power is truly astonishing, particularly when the facts and common sense provide no basis for such an unprecedented action.
The Trump memorandum establishing the current policy says that transgender individuals with a history of gender dysphoria are barred from military service “except under certain limited circumstances.”
The Department of Defense (DoD) had submitted a report to the president which said allowing those with a history of gender dysphoria to serve entailed “substantial risks” and could, by exempting them from existing physical, mental and sex-based standards, “undermine readiness… and impose an unreasonable burden on the military”.
It said the Obama administration’s decision to allow transgender individuals to serve in the military was largely based on a 2016 study by the Rand think-tank, which “contained significant shortcomings”.
The report found that allowing transgender people to serve openly would have a minimal impact on force readiness and healthcare costs.
The new policy approved by President Trump allows current transgender service members with gender dysphoria to continue serving if they were diagnosed after the Obama administration’s policy took effect.
Transgender individuals not diagnosed with gender dysphoria, will be allowed to serve, “like all other service members, in their biological sex”.
Between 4,000 and 10,000 US active-duty and reserve service members are believed to be transgender, but no one knows for sure.
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis said that President Trump’s recently issued policies barring most transgender individuals from the military “stand on their own.”
Speaking to reporters prior to meeting with the Indonesia Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi, Mattis said the military is “out to build the most lethal service.”
And that, not using the military for social engineering experiments, should be the unified goal of our government, regardless of political party.
The justification for President Trump’s decision is abundant, as documented by the Center for Military Readiness recently released 27 -page CMR Special Report, which identifies and analyzes fifteen Defense Department and military service directives that former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and other Pentagon officials imposed on our military, starting in 2015:
The Obama administration issued fifteen directives, instructions, and mandatory, time-wasting training programs to force the military to retain and recruit persons with a psychological condition that renders them non-deployable for long periods of time. All of them reflect the pervasive groupthink and delusional ideology that has permeated Pentagon plans for transgenders in our military said Elaine Donnelly.
Our friend Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a Marine veteran, was quick to support the President’s plan, and released the following statement after an initial review of the Department of Defense’s new transgender military policy:
“President Trump is keeping his pledge to end the Obama era of social experimentation in our nation’s military. In the fall of 2016, I co-moderated a veterans town hall meeting where candidate Donald Trump was asked how he would handle social engineering and political correctness being forced on the military. He responded saying, ‘We are going to get away from political correctness.’ The revised personnel policy announced today does exactly that – it moves the military away from political correctness and puts the focus on the military’s mission: preparing to fight and win wars.
“President Trump is moving the military away from the crippling policies of the Obama era that left our nation’s defenses at its lowest levels of readiness since before WWII. He recognizes that the last thing we should be doing is diverting tax payer dollars from mission-critical training to funding for controversial gender reassignment surgeries and transgender sensitivity training for service members. The president is keeping his promises and advancing policies essential to keeping our military strong and our country safe,” concluded Perkins.
Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, former U.S. Army Delta Force commander and current Family Research Council executive vice president, offered the following reaction:
“It pleases me that our commander-in-chief is more focused on military readiness than on appeasing special interest groups,” concluded Boykin.
If there were ever examples of Republicans In Name Only or RINOs it is these 5, each of whom deserves a conservative primary challenge in 2020 and we stand ready to help their challengers in any way we can.
