New Push For Gay Troops

Gay troops can serve openly in the armed forces without harming the military's ability to fight, the Pentagon's top appointees declared Tuesday, calling for the 17-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" ban to be scrapped and pointing to a new survey to show most troops won't mind. (These are the same leaders appointed by Obama and are expected to share his political goals.)

President Barack Obama, citing the troop poll (with questionable accuracy), urged the Senate to repeal the ban before adjourning in the next few weeks, but there is still no indication GOP objections can be overcome with just a few weeks left in the postelection lame-duck session. The survey itself appears to have been a classic "push-poll", that is, one conducted to achieve specific predetermined results. It is unclear if the troop survey was done face to face or in secret, meaning if the soldiers were parroting what they knew their superiors wanted to hear, or if they could answer with their honest feelings secretly. Gay supporters and many liberal media outlets are claiming that "70% support the change," but this is untrue. The 70% figure is arrived at if those who support a change are combined with those who think the effects would be "mixed." In other words, one could add the "mixed" results with those who oppose the change and also come up with a majority. Another manipulative trick was combining the combat troops responses (those who it will most effect) with non-combat soldiers. 45% of those who do the actual fighting were against the change, and a vast majority of the Marines were especially against the change. In the past, troops have been overwhelming against openly gay and straight soldiers sleeping together in combat situations.

Senate Democrats plan to force a vote in December before the newer Republican Senators have a chance to take their seats. It is a tacit admission they don't feel they can win the vote unless they depend on Senators who are leaving anyway.

In order to "pay back" gays for their support in his election, Obama has called it a top priority to repeal the 1993 law that bans openly gay service. But gay rights groups have complained that he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have done too little to see it through, focusing their postelection efforts instead on tax cuts and a nuclear arms treaty with Russia before Republicans gain congressional strength when lawmakers return in January.

In the report, the study's co-chairs, Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and Army Gen. Carter Ham, wrote, "We are both convinced that our military can do this, even during this time of war." However, Al Quada will certainly capitalize on any perception that the "Godless Americans" whom they fight support homosexuality, as gay activity is strictly condemned in Islam and would be culturally poisonous to relations in the Arab world. It just goes to show that with this administration, political correctness and political payback always trump winning the war. See Chick's THE CHAPLAIN.