“I can’t even believe we’re having to discuss this in polite company.”
That was Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) response to the basket of woke policies Republicans are trying to strip out of the latest military funding bill.
To the average person, they’re no-brainers: keeping men out of women’s showers, refusing to pay for abortion travel, ending taxpayer-funded sex changes.
But debating these things is unavoidable under this White House, Gaetz laments.
“They chose to use the military in a very tortured way … and we’re not going to authorize a [radical] military that works against the interest of our service members and their families.”
The House won big on that front earlier this month, passing a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that sticks it to the Pentagon’s radical priorities.
Now, all eyes are on the Senate, where Republicans are fighting an uphill battle against Democrats to keep Joe Biden’s extremism out.
For now, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) seems more interested in using this second week on the NDAA to “hold together a bipartisan consensus … [and] strike a contrast with the GOP-led House …”
Easier said than done, Gaetz insists, since conservatives show no signs of buckling on these bright red cultural lines.
“We didn’t choose this fight,” the Florida congressman argued.
“I didn’t have to offer an amendment that women shouldn’t have to take showers with biological men, because I chose that fight. … I had to offer that amendment because women stationed [in my] military community said, ‘We are uncomfortable showering with someone who has male genitalia,’” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch.”
And yet, Democrats like Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.) still accuse the GOP of “hijack[ing] the bill to push their social agenda.”
Hardly, Gaetz fired back. “We’re just trying to right the ship. We’re trying to get a course correction in place. … But that means they need to stop using taxpayer money to facilitate abortions through the military. That means that they shouldn’t be robbing money that we appropriate [for parents in the service with children who have disabilities] … for a gender hormone replacement therapy. So that is what we’re talking about. And I think most normal Americans would probably agree with us,” Gaetz said.
Perkins pointed out how often the Left projects onto their opposition, “especially the Biden administration. They stick a gun to your back, and you try to disarm them — and they call you the aggressor.”
Exactly, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) agreed. “The Democrats have been accusing our friends in the House of politicizing the military, which is rich, because the Biden administration is the one that has actually tried to politicize the military thoroughly over the last two and a half years with their witch hunt for non-existent extremists and paying for abortion tourism and for sex-change operations,” the Army veteran said on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch.”
“Republicans are simply standing up for, as you rightly say, the opinion of the vast majority of the American people — to include normal Democrats around the country.” . . . . (read more on Washington Stand)
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