Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and Gen. John Sheehan — the retired four-star general of the U.S. Marine Corps who suggested back in March that gay soldiers were responsible for the Srebrenica massacre — have written a new POLITICO op-en in which they argue that repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is “a political charade to mask a foreordained conclusion.”
Perkins and Sheehan predict that President Obama will alter the Pentagon’s review of the policy to suit his own political agenda and suggest that openly gay men would spread AIDS to the troops and engage in homosexual “behavior” that is “detrimental” to the military:
Yet homosexuality carries with it profound behavioral implications. Sexual attraction among members of the same sex — living, exercising, fighting and training alongside one another in the closest of quarters — could devastate morale, foster heightened interpersonal tension and lead to division among those who, more than virtually any other group in society, need to act as one. […]
In addition, the medical implications of Obama’s proposal are compelling. According to data released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gay and bisexual men are 50 times more likely to have HIV than heterosexual men….This proposal is not about bigotry. Race is a superficial and benign element of one’s humanness, while homosexuality is a matter of behavior.
Homosexuality is not about civil rights but conduct detrimental to the discipline, trust and combat readiness of what has been — and still is — the world’s finest military.
Earlier this year, Sheehan apologized to former Dutch Chief of Staff Van den Breemen for his suggestion that gays caused the massacre, saying that his memory of discussions they had fifteen years ago about some social issues were ‘inaccurate.’ “Sheehan also said that individual soldiers were in “no way” responsible for the massacre. Now, it seems that Perkins has convinced him that gays can be responsible for at least some of the problems in the U.S. forces (H/T: Right Wing Watch).