News Release
For Immediate Release:  December 10, 2010
Contact:  Diane Gramley  1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355

Senate Moves to Protect Troops from Social Engineering

(Harrisburg) – Last night the US Senate by a vote of 57 to 40 voted ‘no’ for cloture on the Defense Authorization Act.  Thus the amendment to repeal the 1993 law banning homosexuals in the military also went down to defeat.   This vote took place after homosexual activists, President Obama, Senator Harry Reid and others have pushed relentlessly for more than two years to repeal the law, many times mislabeled Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), a signer of the Freedom Federation letter to every Senator stating that a repeal of the military ban on homosexuals during the lame duck session was illegitimate and untimely, noted that Pennsylvania’s two Senators voted to endanger national security by voicing a ‘yea’ vote.

“Senator Arlen Specter and Senator Bob Casey, Jr. continued their efforts to appease homosexual groups by yet another pro-homosexual vote.  Not surprising, but still very sad that they are willing to place our troops into a big social experiment and thus compromise our national security.  Strip that amendment out of the Defense Authorization Act and vote to fund our troops period,” remarked Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.

The Pentagon report released on November 30th was flawed as it did not seek input from military personnel and their families about whether the law should be repealed, but simply asked how it could be repealed with the least interruptions.  Only one in four randomly selected to participate in the report actually did.   Not surprisingly, from the start, the report was intended to validate repeal.

The 1993 law —  Public Law 103-160, Section 654, Title 10 — simply codified long standing military policy by clearly stating in law that homosexuals could not serve in the United States military.  The many hearings held before the veto proof votes in both the House and Senate found many statements of fac including

1.)    There is no constitutional right to serve in the armed forces

2.)    Success in combat requires military units that are characterized by high morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion.

3.)    The worldwide deployment of United States military forces, the international responsibilities of the United States, and the potential for involvement of the armed forces in actual combat routinely make it necessary for members of the armed forces involuntarily to accept living conditions and working conditions that are often spartan, primitive, and characterized by forced intimacy with little or no privacy.

4.)    The armed forces must maintain personnel policies that exclude persons whose presence in the armed forces would create an unacceptable risk to the armed forces’ high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.

5.)    The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.

“The law itself is quite clear – homosexuals cannot legally serve in the United States military.  It is Clinton’s convoluted Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy that should be discarded.  Homosexual activists throw out the over 13,000 discharges under the policy, but fail to acknowledge that makes up less than half a percentage point of all discharges.  The law needs to stand, it does not pose a security risk,” stated Gramley.

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