How serious is President Obama about addressing the crises in his military? Not very, if his latest nomination is any indication. With the troops already fighting an internal war over recruitment and retention, the president wants to raise the stakes by appointing openly gay Eric Fanning as Army Secretary.

Fanning, who conservatives remember from the Phillip Monk controversy, has spent his last several years lobbying for open transgenderism in the ranks as Air Force undersecretary and later as the defense secretary’s chief of staff. His efforts paid off when both bosses, Deborah Lee James and Ash Carter, publicly supported the idea, insisting that “times change.”

Well, times may have changed, but the risks have not. Since 2010, Americans have had a front-row seat to the consequences of the White House’s social engineering: sky-high sexual assaults, religious intolerance, record-low morale, and widespread job dissatisfaction. And Fanning’s confirmation would almost certainly take the military to a moral point of no return. With the power to set policy, Fanning, who has already pushed the social envelope, would have the potential to do even more harm to military readiness and recruitment.

As LGBT’s OUTServe bragged, “Having an openly gay individual in high level positions within the Department of Defense helps to set the tone at the top and provides an opportunity to bring better understanding about both the shared and the unique needs of [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals] in the military and their families.” At a time when global tensions are high, the Army needs a proven leader — not a proven activist. When Eric Fanning worked for the Air Force, a branch with one of the worst records on religious liberty, FRC directly appealed to him to stop the faith-based persecution of servicemen like Master Sergeant Phillip Monk. Instead of interceding, Fanning brushed off the concerns about religious hostility in the military and refused to lift a finger to help Monk.

No thanks to Fanning, Sergeant Monk was not only vindicated by the Air Force but honored at his retirement. As secretary of the Army, can we expect this same indifference to religious liberty — or worse, the aggressive censorship of anyone with conservative views? Governor Mike Huckabee, who has never shied away from speaking out on these issues, blasted the administration for caring more about its politically correct legacy than America’s national security. “It’s clear President Obama is more interested in appeasing America’s homosexuals than honoring America’s heroes… Obama is so obsessed with pandering to liberal interest groups he’s nominated an openly gay civilian to run the Army. Homosexuality is not a job qualification.”

Like us, Governor Huckabee knows what danger lies ahead for our already fragile troops. “The U.S. military is designed to keep Americans safe and complete combat missions, not to conduct social experiments.” If the administration is interested in letting people serve openly, how about Christians? Or chaplains? Instead, the White House seems to be signaling even darker days ahead for the men and women who proudly wear their country’s uniform.

Fortunately, the Senate will have an opportunity to weigh in on the president’s pick. You can help by encouraging your leaders to get honest answers about what Fanning plans to do to protect the rights of U.S. service members around the world. What kind of policy guidance would he give so that commanders don’t discriminate against men and women of faith? For now, the nomination of an activist like Fanning is just another indication that the administration is too consumed with sexualizing the troops to bother with military readiness. Under this commander in chief, serving your country may be important — but not as important as serving his extreme agenda.

Life on the Line in the Senate

Jesus said that before you try to clear the speck out of the eye of another, first remove the plank from your own. I’m hard-pressed to find a more appropriate analogy when it comes to the U.S. attempting to address the human rights atrocities in countries such as North Korea, China and Vietnam, given our own human rights atrocities in the form of abortion on demand. There are only 7 countries in the world that allow the killing of unborn children at or beyond 5 months of pregnancy, the age at which unborn babies can feel excruciating pain. At this point in pregnancy, the most common method of abortion is dismemberment, which tears a baby apart, piece by painful piece.

The United States of America, founded on the basic principle of the God-given, unalienable right to life for all, joins North Korea, China, and Vietnam in this inhumane practice. [Today], the US Senate will vote on a procedural motion to move to Senator Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Passage of this bill would prevent late abortion nationwide at 20 weeks (5 months) after fertilization, saving approximately 13,000 pain-capable babies from agonizing death every year.

The House version of this bill passed in May of this year, and now Leader McConnell is making good on his promise that he would bring it up for a vote in the Senate. Recently, America has been horrified by revelations of what happens to babies killed during late abortion, their bodies painfully ripped apart and crushed and their parts harvested. Larger, more developed unborn babies are targeted for “tissue procurement” — body parts. And yet, these unborn babies are the very ones who can feel their little bodies being torn apart.

In a recent joint op-ed, Senator Graham and Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List, wrote, “The bedrock of human empathy is the ability to feel another creature’s pain… The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is a small beginning on the road to recovering our humanity.”

Representative Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), sponsor of the House version of the bill, said of these pain-capable babies, “Many of them cry and scream as they die, but because it is amniotic fluid going over their vocal cords instead of air, we don’t hear them.” With this bill, Senator Graham and other pro-life Members of Congress are giving them a voice, speaking for those who can’t, and crying out for mercy for those whose lives may yet be cruelly torn apart. [W]e will see how many Senators will defend these unborn, pain-capable babies.

Remembering Jake Brewer

One of the opportunities I have been afforded during my 12 years as president of Family Research Council is not only to meet, but to work with and get to know many of our nation’s leaders and those who shape public opinion. One of those is Mary Katharine Ham, editor-at-large of HotAir.com, who is grieving the loss of her husband, Jake, who was tragically killed over the weekend while participating in a charity bicycle race to benefit cancer research. Jake leaves behind his wife, their two year old daughter Georgia, and another baby on the way. Mary Katharine wrote this tribute to her husband:

> “I lost part of my heart and the father of my sweet babies. I don’t have to tell most of you how wonderful he was. It was self-evident. His life was his testimony, and it was powerful and tender and fierce, with an ever-present twinkle in the eye. I will miss him forever, even more than I can know right now…There was no thought too optimistic for Jake, so take it and run with it. I will strive and pray not to feel I was cheated of many years with him, but cherish the gift of the years I had. In a life where nothing is guaranteed, Jake made the absolute, ever-lovin’ most of his time with all of us. [The photo on this post] is a family picture we took a couple weeks ago. It was taken because Jake, as always, was ready with a camera and his immense talent. All four members of our little, growing family are in it. I can never be without him because these babies are half him.”

Please join me in praying for Mary Katharine, and her family and friends who are in anguish over Jake’s passing.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.