Justin's Political Corner

Before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed, as many as 114,000 service members were discharged because they were gay, and many of those were dishonorable or other than honorable discharges. The damage those dishonorable discharges have done can’t be undone, but the status of the discharges themselves could be, and two House Democrats—Wisconsin’s Mark Pocan and New York’s Charlie Rangel—have proposed a bill to do just that.

Explaining that many states treat dishonorable discharges as felonies, and that service members discharged for being gay may have had trouble getting work or even been prohibited from voting or getting unemployment benefits or veteran benefits, Pocan details the remedies of the proposed bill.

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto dismissed the epidemic of sexual assault in the military, claiming that efforts to address the growing problem contributed to a “war on men” and an “effort to criminalize male sexuality.”  

Taranto, a member of the Journal’s editorial board, dismissed these facts to claim that McCaskill’s effort to address the growing problem of sexual assault in the military was a “war on men” and a “political campaign” that showed “signs of becoming an effort to criminalize male sexuality.” He also claimed that the female lieutenant who reported that she had been assaulted acted just as “recklessly” as the accused attacker, apparently by doing nothing more than getting into the same vehicle as him.

But McCaskill is not trying to re-litigate the case; she is trying to determine why Helms ignored her legal advisers and overturned a jury of five Air Force officers. As the Post explained, advocacy groups charge that “any decision to overrule a jury’s verdict for no apparent reason has a powerful dampening effect,” contributing to a culture in which the majority of sexual assaults in the military remain unreported.

h/t: MMFA

Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality appeared on VCY America’s Crosstalk yesterday to discuss the recent decision by the Boy Scouts to include openly gay members under the age of 18 and the upcoming vote on marriage equality legislation in the Illinois State House. Understandably, LaBarbera was quite despondent and even resigned to increasing gay rights victories, warning that “God is giving us over to our sin.”

LaBarbera: I’ll tell you, I fear for our country, I believe God is giving us over to our sin. It seems that way to me, I don’t have a red phone to the Lord but it just seems that America is on such a precipitous decline, you know God seems to be saying: ‘You want homosexuality? You want abortion? Here, go ahead and have it.’ We’re a free society. The culture war on this issue alone is frightening, how much more resources and money the pro-sin side—which would be the homosexual side, that’s a sin—how much more resources they bring than to the side of righteousness and in a free society the people who bring the most organization, resources, money and people win and that’s what’s happening.

During the program, host Jim Schneider read Michael Swift’s obviously satirical “Gay Manifesto,” the 1987 essay which facetiously talks about gay “private armies” that will “conquer the world” and defeat the “hetero swine,” as if it was a serious political treatise, lamenting that “we are seeing item by item virtually everything that he has laid out here to be fulfilled today.”

LaBarbera called Swift’s piece “demonic” and “shockingly evil,” while even he admitted that it “may have been a satirical essay.”

Schneider later claimed that “same-sex assaults that are taking place in the military are just drastically on the increase” since the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy was lifted.” As we have already pointed out, however, CNN has reported that the current sexual assault rate among active duty men has “remained unchanged” from 2010, the year before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed.

In an addendum to this story posted earlier today, we have yet another Republican-manufactured “scandal” to add to the list: Obama’s use of an umbrella. Yep, Republicans now have their panties twisted over a request President Obama made to have umbrellas used for himself and a guest during a speaking engagement. What’s the furor over? According to the Washington Post:

On Thursday, during a joint press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, Obama signaled to two Marines and asked them to protect him and his guest from the rain. 

“I am going to go ahead and ask folks — why don’t we get a couple of Marines, they’re going to look good next to us. Just because I’ve got a change of suits, but I don’t know about our prime minister.” Gesturing to the unprotected press, he added, “You guys, I’m sorry about…” 

During the week of IRS, AP and Benghazi, that awkward moment is being criticized as yet another administration blunder. Male Marines are not allowed to use umbrellas while in uniform, and the sentries who stand guard outside the White House often get wet. 

So where’s the outrage coming from? Furthermore, where was the outrage when three other Presidents committed military forces to the same task? 

Last week, Matt Barber and Shawn Akers were discussing the current Religious Right myth that the military was going to start to court-martial soldiers for sharing their faith.  It is not true, of course, but that isn’t about to stop Barber and Akers from repeating it and complaining that the Obama administration is implementing a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”-like program for Christianity in the military.

“We have people controlling the reins of government, right now,” Barber said, “particularly out of the Oval Office, who are calling evil ‘good’ and good ‘evil.’ They are elevating and celebrating deviant sexual behavior in the ranks of the armed services, which is in direct conflict with clear biblical admonitions against sexual sin in both the Old and New Testaments.”

H/T: RWW

Fox News’ Sean Hannity and Todd Starnes portrayed restraints on proselytization as proof of the Obama administration’s purported “war on religious liberty in the military,” despite the fact that military policy has long prohibited unwanted proselytization.

On the May 2 edition of his Fox News show, Hannity claimed that a Pentagon statement reiterating the military’s longtime policy against proselytizing was proof of Obama’s “war on religious liberty.” Starnes added that Christians were “under significant attack” by the Obama administration, under which “we have seen a Christian cleansing of the United States military.”

In fact, the U.S. military’s anti-proselytization policy has been consistent among all religions, and it targets only disruptive activities. A statement released May 2 by Defense Department spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen clarified the military’s policy that “members of the military are free to share their faith as long as they don’t harass others.”

From the 05.02.2013 edition of FNC’s Hannity:

h/t: MMFA

The Religious Right went into a frenzy this week over charges that the military was deliberately blocking access to SBC.net, the official website of the Southern Baptist Convention’s, as part of an anti-Christian ploy.

“What we are seeing here, I want to be very clear here, we are seeing under the Obama administration a Christian cleansing underway in the United States military,” Fox News’ Starnes maintained.

David Limbaugh accused the military of acting like a “thought police” who “selectively suppress[es] First Amendment freedoms” that “our armed forces are charged to protect,” and the SBC’s top ethicist Richard Land said it was an “outrageous” move and the person who blocked the website “needs to be fired.”

The American Family Association called the incident an example of the military’s “hostility towards faith and religious freedom” and its spokesman Bryan Fischer claimed it was part of an Islamist-secularist conspiracy to classify the entire denomination as a “hate group that spews nothing but ‘hostile content.’”

SBC.net was in fact blocked, but not as a result of anti-Christian bias, but because of malware on the SBC’s website.

Don’t just take our word for it, the Baptist Press, the news arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, reported that “the military’s software filters detected malware at SBC.net and blocked the website.” Due to malware, not the content of the website, SBC.net was considered “hostile content.”

But don’t hold your breath for Land or Fischer to retract their inflammatory claims.

H/T: RWW

Alan Keyes is out with a new column today arguing that Christians should not shy away from violence in the face of the “gruesome violence [that] is being done to Christians.” He also argues that the U.S. government may soon join in on the anti-Christian “genocidal threats,” perhaps as a result of the gay rights movement.

“[I]t’s not at all unreasonable to see, in certain recurring reports, signs that the U.S. government is preparing our military forces to do violence against Christian denominations that refuse to abandon God’s Word on matters like homosexuality,” Keyes writes, urging Christians to “be prepared to execute God’s law” and “release the power of God’s Word against the perpetrator of evil.”

h/t: Right Wing Watch

What is making the right-wing mouthpieces angry today? It is the fact that the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)’s website was blocked on some military bases.

The Tennesseean:

The website for the Southern Baptist Convention has been blocked from some US Army computers.

That’s caused some conservative activists to accuse the Pentagon of being hostile to religion.

Ties between conservative evangelicals and the military have been strong in the past. But the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and other recent incidents have strained those ties.

A Southern Baptist spokesman said that he spoke to Army officials who confirmed that some computers have blocked access to SBC.Net

Those officials say the problem is a glitch, said Roger “Sing” Oldham, convention spokesman.

Even SBC spokesman Sing Oldham admits the the site’s blocking as accidental, but according to the conservative minsinformation chamber, the incident was viewed as “sinister,” “anti-Christian,” and even “pandering to Islamists.”

Right-Wing Reactions:
Todd Starnes, Fixed Noise Radio:

The U.S. Military has blocked access to the Southern Baptist Convention’s website on an unknown number of military bases because it contains “hostile content” — just weeks after an Army briefing labeled Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics as examples of religious extremism, Fox News has learned.

The censorship was made public after an Army officer tried to log onto the denomination’s website and instead — received a warning message.
“The site you have requested has been blocked by Team CONUS (C-TNOSC/RCERT-CONUS) due to hostile content,” the message read.
Team CONUS protects the computer network of the Dept. of Defense. The SBC’s website was not blocked at the Pentagon.
It’s unclear what the “hostile content” might have been. The SBC is pro-life and opposed to same-sex marriage.

Bryan Fischer, host of AFA Radio’s Focal Point:

Bryan Fischer has produced the latest anti-Christian conspiracy theory and of course rather than do any research, rather than do anything as simple as picking up the phone or sending an email, he’s decided to go on the air to tell his million or so listeners about this latest “attack” on their religious rights by their government.

In this video, below, Fischer explains that he has “breaking news,” that the U.S. government is blocking access from military or government personnel to the Southern Baptist Convention’s homepage. The SBC is the nation’s second-largest Christian group, after Roman Catholics, and they boast about 16 million members, or about five percent of the nation’s population.

By the end of the video clip, Fischer has convinced himself that this seems like a vast government conspiracy to label the Southern Baptist Convention a “hate group,” making the giant leap from “hostile content” to “hate group.”

“Basically, the U.S. military has classified the Southern Baptist Convention as a hate group — the entire denomination,” Fischer repeatedly cries, adding, “it’s like porn.”

Lucianne Goldberg, founder of Lucianne.com:

Was access to Islamic radical websites also blocked? I would sure be more concerned about that! The DOD is working diligently to investigate what might be causing access issues. Uh huh.

AFA Action Alert:

This is just another example of the Christian faith coming under attack in the military. Earlier this month, an Army email listed prominent Christian ministries like the Family Research Council and American Family Association as “domestic hate groups.”

FreeRepublic:
Here are some of the more out there comments on that site:

Actually, it seems that some U.S. Army officers are hostile to the Southern Baptist Convention. - righttackle44

Muslims good, Christians bad. -  E. Pluribus Unum

Military chaplains and bibles in the foxhole have a long history. Now because sodomites are celebrated by a corrupt culture, sin has been redefined by the government. That is still prohibited by the First Amendment. - a fool in paradise

but not a negative word about Islam.

Time for Christians and conservatives to not join the military and to advise their relatives not to. - GeronL

They’re getting this information from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). A very far Left Wing outfit that labels any and everything conservative a hate group. The SPLC is now a traning contractor for the US government.

Originally hired by “Big Sis” Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, who claimed military veterans were potential terrorists deemed watching by DHS, the SPLC is now training the entire FedGov.

Write your Congressman! The SPLC contract HAS TO GO! - Alas Babylon!

The comments on that page are what you would expect— blaming it on Muslims, gays, liberals, Obama, et al.

Ken Kluklowski at Breitbart.com’s Big Government:

Lt. Col. Damien Pickart insists the Pentagon is not intentionally blocking access for Southern Baptists but has not provided any official explanation for the multiple reports of the military blocking access to Southern Baptist material. On its face, this looks like a brazen show of hostility by the Obama administration against devout Christians in the U.S. military.
Breitbart News legal columnist Ken Klukowski is senior fellow for religious liberty at the Family Research Council.

Today on AFR’s Focal Point, Bryan Fischer hosted Todd Starnes on this topic. As expected, it’s full of complaining that “Muslims have more rights than [Conservative] Christians in this country” crap.

The right will continue to declare this an “intentional sabotage of our Christian freedoms,” but the fact is this: the Southern Baptist Convention’s website getting blocked is more likely to be a glitch. Flip the story for a second: If it was Planned Parenthood, Media Matters, Alternet, pro-LGBTQ sites, or this very site getting blocked on the bases, the right would cheer it.

(cross-posted from Daily Kos)