Leftists are more concerned with who you are than what you do. And the U.S. Armed Forces has become a prime target for social engineers to advance their twisted cultural agenda through a manufactured gender-identity crisis.

Here are but two examples:

First, the ongoing debate regarding roles and standards for women in certain military specialties reflects the Left-driven trend of favoring identity over ability. At the behest of women-in-combat advocates, the Pentagon directed the services to assess the impact of opening male-only combat specialties to women.

Seeking empirical evidence in order to respond objectively, the Marine Corps provisionally opened its Infantry Officer Course to females last year. None of the applicants had made it beyond the first major hurdle – the Combat Endurance Test (a.k.a., Endurance Course) – until three completed it last month. Proponents’ hopes were quickly dashed, however, when all three were dropped soon thereafter for failing to meet standards in subsequent events.

Similarly, the Army recently announced a pilot program at its grueling Ranger School to assess “whether and how to open combat arms military occupational specialties to women.” While the Army’s announcement protests that standards will not be altered to accommodate the females, they would do well to learn from the Marines’ experience.

As females have repeatedly failed to meet combat-tested standards – validating the existing restrictions – advocates have shifted their argument from “you can’t exclude them just because of their gender” to “you can’t exclude them just because they can’t meet the standards … the standards aren’t ‘fair.’” Leftists always have to move the goalposts to meet their objectives.

Second, in a similar vein, leftist social engineers are working to enforce “tolerance” of gender-disorientation pathology in the Armed Forces. The military is forcing a combat pilot into retirement because he tried to stop two lesbians from making out on the dance floor at a formal ball. According to a lawsuit against the Army for throwing the pilot under the bus, the couple was kissing for long periods, taking off each other’s jackets and a scene was developing.

According to The Washington Times, “Lt. Col. Christopher Downey, who was once assigned to the White House and completed tours in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, ended up being convicted administratively of assaulting a soldier trying to videotape the kissing and grabbing. Col. Downey’s attorney, Richard Thompson … said Col. Downey’s commanding officer also convicted him of violating the directive that ended the ban on gays openly serving in the military. ‘It’s political correctness run wild,’ Mr. Thompson said. ‘Military rules do not apply to lesbian officers because of political correctness.’”

These sorts of activists and incidents place our national security at risk by elevating identity above accomplishment and actions. The contrast with Congresswoman-elect Mia Love’s election-night emphasis on substance and results, for example, is stark and highlights one of the fundamental differences between Right and Left.