Rep. Charles Djou (R-HI), who won a special election to fill the seat vacated by Neil Abercrombie, was one of only 5 Republicans in the House to support an amendment establishing the process to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT). On Friday, Djou explained that his personal experiences as an army reservist convinced him that the policy was broken:

DJOU: On that particular issue, it comes from personal experience. I have served for nearly 10 years now in the United States Army Reserve. What concerned me about the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy is that it just simply doesn’t work. And I have seen too many instances as an army reservist, soldiers would sign up for a re-enlistment bonus. Get this gigantic sum from the American taxpayer. And then as soon as the unit gets called up to mobilize to Iraq and Afghanistan, they suddenly claim they are gay, with no prior indication of that whatsoever. Get the discharge and keep the bonus. That’s wrong, that’s unfair and that’s why this policy should be changed.

Watch it:

The Advocate points out that Djou has a mixed record on gay issues. Djou opposes opposing civil unions and marriage equality but allegedly “supports providing domestic-partner benefits to federal employees, supports domestic-partner tax equity, supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and opposes efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution with a discriminatory anti-gay-marriage provision.”

Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins is worried that last week’s votes to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) could push God-fearing Christians and military chaplains out of the military and encourage disease-ridden “homosexuals” to transform the institution into a gay Mecca. Writing on CNN.com, Perkins argues that repealing DADT would usher in an unconstitutional “left-wing social dogma”:

Some people think allowing open homosexuality in the military means nothing more than opening a door that was previously closed. It means much more than that. It would mean simultaneously ushering out the back door anyone who disapproves of homosexual conduct, whether because of legitimate privacy and health concerns or because of moral or religious convictions….all 1.4 million members of the U.S. military will be subject to sensitivity training intended to indoctrinate them into the myths of the homosexual movement [...]

For no other offense than believing what all the great monotheistic religions have believed for all of history, some service members will be denied promotion, will be forced out of the service altogether, or will simply choose not to reenlist. Other citizens will choose not to join the military in the first place. The numbers lost will dwarf the numbers gained by opening the ranks to practicing homosexuals…..But overturning the American military’s centuries-old ban on homosexual conduct, codified in a 1993 law, would mean placing sexual libertinism – a destructive left-wing social dogma found nowhere in the Constitution – above religious liberty, our nation’s first freedom.

Following Thursday’s vote, the right wing — which had gone off the rails last week — has remained relatively subdued, undoubtedly re-grouping for the fight on the Senate floor.

The anti-gay Center for Military Readiness (CMR) has declared Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen to be “derelict” in his duties, for conveying “views from the president on down rather [than] from the other service chiefs on up.” Similarly, the anti-gay blog Americans for Truth About Homosexuality posted an op-ed criticizing conservative media for failing to engage “in the fight to stop our Armed Forces from becoming the next ’battlefield’ for Sexual Correctness.”