House Libs Gunning for Trump's Military Policy

by Tony Perkins: The far-Left has never really understood the military culture. What works in a routine office environment doesn't necessarily translate to the battlefield. That doesn't seem to matter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who thinks Barack Obama was right to force a bunch of politically-correct policies on a group of men and women fighting for their lives. Well, that may have been fine under an administration who cared more about "tolerance" than national security. But it's not fine under this one.

President Trump never served in the military, but unlike Nancy Pelosi, he has a healthy respect for the people who do. When they said open transgenderism is a distraction, he believed them. And more importantly, he did something about it. This administration has fought for two years to restore the military after the mess Barack Obama's social experimentation left behind. Now that he's finally on the verge of putting some of these distractions behind us, House Democrats want to take a pound of flesh.

As early as Wednesday, the far-Left is planning to put a resolution on the House floor to condemn the president's transgender policy in the military. The sponsor, Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.), doesn't care that military leaders support the partial ban -- or that a year's worth of research went into proving its necessity. He only cares that it's "unfair." Our president, he argues, is "injecting intolerance into our military" and he "strongly urges the Department of Defense to not reinstate President Trump's [policy]" on gender dysphoria. Instead, he and his extremist friends would rather taxpayers continued spending millions of dollars on hormones, sex reassignment surgery, and psychotherapy for service members who aren't even deployable.

And it isn't just the cost the Pentagon panned. It's the effect on military readiness.

"Persons with gender dysphoria experience significant distress and impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Gender dysphoria is also accompanied by extremely high rates of suicidal ideation and other comorbidities. Therefore, to ensure unit safety and mission readiness, which is essential to military effectiveness and lethality, persons who are diagnosed with, or have a history of, gender dysphoria are generally disqualified from accession or retention in the Armed Forces," the Defense Department report pointed out.It's easy to stand on the House floor and talk about injustice when you're not the one in combat, putting your life in another person's hands. America's recruiting policy is stringent for a reason. Distractions are deadly. Lack of fitness is deadly. Medical conditions can be deadly. For every person who's barred for identifying as transgender, there are thousands more disqualified for other reasons. As former Secretary James Mattis himself wrote in the memo, 71 percent of Americans are ineligible right out of the gate for "medical, mental, or behavioral reasons."

If House Democrats truly cared about our troops, they'd listen to them. These are the men and women who put their lives on the line every day for their country. And when President Trump announced that he was slamming the breaks on Obama's policy, they cheered. Of the 1,031 current and former service members the Smithsonian asked, 61 percent sided with Trump in rejecting open transgenderism. Another 60 percent said they believe the military is in better shape now than it was under President Obama.

The military isn't about fairness. It's about what makes the most effective fighting force. Maybe that's offensive to some people, but FRC -- like our commander-in-chief -- will always put readiness first. That's why we'll score against this resolution. It's time for House Republicans to stand with the president and give our troops the environment they need to succeed. Take the time to contact your House member today -- especially if you live in a Republican district -- and urge them to vote no on H. Res. 124.
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Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . This article was on Tony Perkin's Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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