By J. M. Phelps | WND News
Recently, in celebration of June being “Pride Month,” the Pentagon presented the 13th Annual LGBTQI+ Pride Ceremony.
Hosted by the DOD Association of LGBTQI+ Service Members, Employees, and Allies, the “Pride event” featured several speakers, including Navy Rear Admiral Mike Brown, division director for Operations in the Information Environment.
Brown, described as “a long-time member of DOD pride,” began his talk (at 33:57), declaring “Happy Pride!” in an attempt to fire up the audience. In 2014, he talked publicly about his struggle “coming out” as a gay man who, at the time, had a wife and children. Since overcoming his “shame, guilt and self-loathing,” Brown now makes it a point to “make [himself] visible to sailors and civilians in the Navy.”
However, many service members are horrified by such spectacles, as well as by the movement behind them, holding that the imposition of so-called “diversity, equity and inclusion” and LGBT ideologies on the nation’s military promotes immorality, advances perverse priorities and seriously weakens and undermines America’s military readiness.
One of them is John Frankman, a former captain and U.S. Army Green Beret, who told WND the forces behind the LGBT and DEI ideology are “pushing a new set of moral standards and values on the military.”
He fears that the acceptance and participation in Pride events by service members is “virtue signaling” and nothing more than “someone trying to get ahead in the military that’s moving in a very liberal direction.”
“It’s showing someone’s loyalty to the Democratic Party, attempting to control the direction that the federal government and other federal agencies are going,” said Frankman. “It’s a religion to these people, but what they need is a moral theology.”
Frankman considers it “sad and tragic that the values being portrayed are more about being whoever you think you can be in the military [with regard to sexuality] versus what is best for the military.” For example, Frankman regards transgenderism as “a detriment” to the military that infringes on the beliefs of non-LGBT service members.
In survey results published in March, many service members agreed. According to the survey, over 90 percent of 229 respondents said “they have a moral or religious objection to transgenderism” and “feel like they’re being forced to believe in something they don’t.”
“For anyone to spend any time trying to prioritize the praising of a mental disorder is ludicrous,” Frankman told WND. In the end, he added, it does nothing more than take away from the force readiness of the nation’s military.
“We need to be focused on being the most competent in our jobs and on warfighting,” he explained.
COVID vax mandate had ‘even greater impact on readiness’
While Diversity, Equity and Inclusion ideology is “pushing the wrong priorities,” Frankman argues that an even greater impact to readiness was Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s now-rescinded 2021 military COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
He points out that there were 8,600 service members separated from the military for refusing to take the injection. What’s more, tens of thousands of others elected to leave the service rather than be subjected to the unlawful mandate.
“Whether it be against DEI or the tyrannical enforcement of an unlawful vaccine,” Frankman told WND, “what we need most are moral people who make moral decisions to fight against these kinds of things.”
For senior military leaders and others in government who disagree, he said, simply, “They need to be held accountable.”
For this reason, Frankman is one of the 231 signatories to the Declaration of Military Accountability that pledges to hold military leaders accountable for enforcing the once-mandated COVID-19 injection, which has caused – and continues to cause – harm to the nation’s service members.
Service members and veterans like Frankman agree that Congress and the Department of Defense must acknowledge that the COVID-19 shot was both unlawful and harmful to thousands.
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