Hosted by the DOD Association of LGBTQI+ Service Members, Employees, and Allies, the 13th Annual LBGTQI+ Pride Ceremony took place in the Pentagon last week.
A handful of senior defense officials participated in the “Pride event," including Navy Rear Admiral Mike Brown, division director for Operations in the Information Environment.
Brown, introduced as “a long-time member of DOD pride," is an open homosexual naval officer who "came out" in 2014. When he did, he was married with children at the time.
In his remarks, the navy officer said he wants other homosexuals to “thrive in the military,” so he takes every opportunity to “make [himself] visible to sailors and civilians in the Navy."
Reacting to the Pentagon's celebration Pride Month, American Family News spoke to Dr. Charles "Chase" Spears. He recently retired from the Army after a 20-year public affairs career specializing in ethical military communication strategy.
After watching the video of Brown speaking at the event, Spears says he saw a senior flag officer who was being presented as a "role model" when he left his wife and children to pursue his own "selfish desires."
In a related article about Pride Month for The American Mind, Spears summarized the state of the U.S. armed forces. "The American military that could not be defeated by global nuclear powers," he warned, "was conquered by a band of people dedicated to sexual disorder.”
Spears recalls the first Pride event held during the liberal Obama administration. He calls it “a shock to the system and stark departure from over two centuries of military norms, traditions, and morality.”
According to him, the U.S. armed forces "transformed" from not discussing their sex lives at work to command-sponsored events focused entirely on people's sexual behaviors.
From 'Don't Ask' to a Pentagon speech
That transformation describes the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy begun by President Bill Clinton, which at the time was viewed as a liberal policy for including LGBT military members.
When Barack Obama took office, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was repealed because it was viewed as a backwards policy, and the Pentagon held its first-ever "Pride Month" event in June 2012.
"We have the mightiest military in the world," Jeh Johnson, then general counsel at the Department of Defense, told the gathering. "Not just because of our planes, guns, tanks and ships. But because of our people, their ability to adapt to change, and their respect for the rule of law, their commanders and their civilian leaders."
This year, at the 13th annual event, the Pentagon gathering heard from a U.S. Air Force technical sergeant, Aaron Kakumu. The sergeant (pictured at right), who identifies as transgender, used the speech to warn about "hate crimes" perpetrated against the "L-G-B-T-Q-plus" community.
"The military has always been a seed of social change," Kakuma said, echoing Johnson's words from 13 years ago. "We understand that America's strength lies in our diversity of thought."
According to Spears, however, the opposite is true. Military service members who criticize the rainbow flag-waving movement are pressured, threatened, and punished for expressing their thoughts.
“In a twist of irony,” he says, “they’re punished for a lack of dignity and respect, a pithy statement that is increasingly applied in one-way fashion based on one’s personal convictions.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. armed forces currently is leading a NATO-Russia stand-off in Eastern Europe, with whispers of a pending third world war, with the smallest military force since World War II due to poor recruitment numbers year after year.
Faced with its own recruitment woes, the U.S. Navy tried to woo more recruits with a sailor-drag queen named "Harpy Daniels," even though the Navy has been the butt of jokes about its homosexual sailors going back generations.
"The Pentagon’s Pride obsession," Spears concludes, "is a force-wide political pander that is degrading morale and mission readiness across the Defense Department.”
