In Brief: The U.S. Military Shouldn’t Celebrate Pride Month
Dedicating them to things like Pride Month celebrations is, at best, a waste. At worst, it’s actively counterproductive.
As Mark Alexander noted last week, the Marine Corps participated in a disgraceful social media celebration of “Pride Month.” That simply shouldn’t happen, agrees an active-duty combat-arms officer writing under the pen name Robert Berg.
It’s June, which means that our culture is now marked by seemingly omnipresent celebrations of “Pride Month.” Even the U.S. military has gotten in on the act. “Throughout June, the USMC takes #pride in recognizing and honoring the contributions of our LGBTQ service members,” the official account of the U.S. Marines tweeted last week. “We remain committed to fostering an environment free from discrimination, and defend the values of treating all equally, with dignity and respect.” Attached to the tweet was a picture of a Marine helmet with six rainbow-tipped bullets stashed away on it.
It’s a ridiculous message that captures the stupidity of letting politics hijack military operations. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and forced celebrations of things like Pride Month push our military away from its one job: to fight and win our nation’s wars. I do not support LGBTQ+ activism, and I do not think Pride Month is something that should be openly celebrated by government organizations, especially our military. The fact that I thought seriously about deleting that last sentence, as I know I will be called a bigot for it, perfectly illustrates why the military should not be weighing in on cultural issues that have nothing to do with combat readiness or mission set. I acknowledge we have quality gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members who do their job well. But their quality has nothing to do with their being gay, lesbian, or bisexual. That the U.S. military feels the need to celebrate their sexual preference as something that makes it better should be a natural head scratcher for everyone — including those service members who fall into these categories.
Berg argues that due to “limited time and resources,” expending those precious commodities on kowtowing to the Rainbow Mafia “is simply wasteful.” Unfortunately, he says, “key organizational effort and manpower will continue to be diverted to DEI, weakening unit cohesion, and robbing resources from warfighting endeavors.”
And it’s not about whether someone is homosexual, he says. “Any attacks or discrimination against a service member for any bigoted reason should be met with the swiftest and most severe Uniformed Code of Military Justice punishment available.” But the opposite is now happening.
Indeed, one of the most serious issues with pushing Pride Month in the military is that everyone knows it has no place there, but no one will speak up. I am not alone in believing it has no place in the military mission set. However, if anyone in uniform dared to say this publicly, they would face serious consequences and likely would be drummed out of service or at least have their career ruined. I have never heard an argument that coherently captures why the military should weigh in on this particular social issue. Because we have LGBTQ+ service members? Well, we have pro-life service members. I do not recall celebrating the March for Life. I am strongly pro-life, but I would also be strongly opposed to the military promoting the March for Life, as it has nothing to do with our ability to fight and win our nation’s wars. It would also divide our military members unnecessarily on a topic on which the military should have no stance.
Instead, sheer favoritism is poisoning the military.
The Army People Strategy makes this clear: “establish and implement procedures for achieving desired Army diversity outcomes through diversity policy and talent management principles and practices.” Merit be damned: We will get the outcomes we want through forcing policy that is not about warfighting but favoring certain groups over others. We used to call this discrimination. We now call it DEI progress, and you are funding it.
Finally, Berg concludes:
If you think celebrating Pride Month and other DEI efforts are not worth fighting back against, you have not been paying attention. DEI is about fundamentally reshaping our institutions to reflect the Left’s social agenda at all costs. The military is a convenient target because members are not allowed to openly speak out against official military policy or criticize elected officials and federal bureaucrats. They can make service members comply. You are next. Speak out for our military service members and keep the military focused on fighting and winning our nation’s wars — which we have not been doing a lot of lately.
