It’s been a long time since Americans read a headline about the U.S. military that actually had to do with national defense. And thanks to the Navy, that’s not about to change any time soon. While Congress has yet to weigh in on the administration’s push for open transgenderism in the ranks, Navy brass are making it clear that it’s full steam ahead on President Obama’s radical social policy that threatens to unravel whatever unit cohesion the military has left.

Starting November 1 (a week before an election that could help end this nonsense), all sailors will be required to undergo “transgender behavioral education.” According to Navy Chief of Personnel Vice Admiral Robert Burke, the training will include everything from multi-hour briefings to discussion groups about how to best coddle gender confusion in the ranks. Supervisors will be taught to be “on alert” for signs of mistreatment of people who identify as transgender and deal with offenders appropriately.

“Training for sailors will be conducted by command triads via mobile training teams or DVD with a facilitation guide if the unit is in a remote area and unable to receive face-to-face training. There will also be webinars for COs to ask questions prior to delivering training to their commands,” explained a branch spokesman. At a time when our troops could use real reinforcements, the Navy is even dispatching special mobile units for the sole purpose of indoctrinating sailors on transgenderism!

Barely two days removed from another terror attack on U.S. soil (and two other attempted bombings), it’s good to see the commander-in-chief has his priorities straight. And unfortunately, the Navy isn’t the only one sinking under the weight of these social experiments. The real war for America is being waged inside all four branches of the U.S. military. And until our leaders stop chasing these politically correct distractions, we’re giving the enemy exactly the opening it’s looking for. Instead of focusing on mission-critical issues and dealing with the threats at hand, the military is jeopardizing our nation’s security by catering to less than one half of one percent of the entire population!

As FRC’s Lt. General Jerry Boykin (U.S. Army-Ret.) points out, every time you make a change to military rules or procedures, a complicated package of paperwork, HR and personnel management follows to ensure that each policy is embraced and implemented. As a result, hours and hours are wasted teaching transgender etiquette at the expense of warfighting skills.

“Service members are expected to maintain standards of conduct and treat each other with dignity and respect,” Navy officials say. FRC’s Travis Weber, a former Navy pilot, agrees — but only to a point. “The whole commentary from the Navy and activist groups about not tolerating harassment and treating everyone with dignity and respect is a distraction. No one is saying that people should be disrespected and harassed. Advocates for a Christian view of sexuality and marriage, none of us have tolerated that. We always condemn it.” But he also worries that this is a very aggressive agenda that is “being pushed in a very intrusive manner.” “This is unfortunate because our military should be focused on unifying the troops and this is only going to divide them.”

“I think we are going to see the consequences of this playing out through increased discord in the military due to forcing people who cannot in good conscience go along with being told what they need to believe in these training sessions and you are going to see people refuse to sign up for the military or refuse to re-enlist. They are going to choose to get out instead of staying in. We will see long-term consequences that will be quite severe.”

These changes also have a devastating effect on the newest generation of sailors. Think about it. In the last eight years, every young recruit coming through the military’s doors knows nothing but this in-your-face social extremism. The proud warrior tradition, which used to be the common bond of the military class, has faded to the background in this new chapter of sexual radicalism. Now, we’re enlisting a class of soldiers who have no frame of reference, they do not know what a military that prioritize the mission of defending America looks like. Reversing the damage of the Obama administration is going to take time — and a president committed to restoring the honor and might of America’s fighting force. Let’s hope American voters do their part.

Originally published here.

Charlotte’s Web of Activism

Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts started the North Carolina bathroom mess — and this week, she had a chance to end it. Unfortunately for the state, it seems the city’s top Democrat isn’t nearly as interested in getting North Carolina back on track as she and other liberals insist they are. Locked in a bitter clash with liberal elites that’s seen the state lose seven NCAA tournaments, the ACC championship, and the NBA All-Star Game, Governor Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) and the state’s Republicans offered the Left a way out of the controversy. In exchange for Charlotte dropping its forced redefinition of gender on private entities, McCrory offered to call a special session to repeal H.B. 2, the law that put these decisions that impact public facilities back in the state legislature’s hands.

The repeal-for-repeal offer was a fair and reasonable attempt at getting the state out of the political hot seat and back to the real issues facing North Carolina. But instead of accepting the deal to return the Tar Heels to the pre-March status quo, Mayor Roberts rejected it — pulling back the (shower) curtain on what many people have suspected all along: that the Left’s interest is only in furthering its own agenda. Behind a podium with the radical Human Rights Campaign (HRC) logo, Roberts made it clear that the people running Charlotte are not elected officials — but outside LGBT activist groups. House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Leader Phil Berger could only shake their heads at Roberts’s stubbornness. “If the Charlotte City Council had not passed its ordinance in the first place, the North Carolina General Assembly would not have called itself back into session to pass H.B. 2 in response.”

They’re right. This is a crisis of Charlotte’s own making. Unlike H.B. 2, which has been completely misrepresented by the media, the city’s ordinance would have imposed these radical redefinitions of gender on private entities. This wasn’t a matter of Charlotte mandating it on government property — but forcing businesses to do the same. Now, the city has a chance to help the hurting state, and it refuses. Even the city’s Chamber of Commerce agrees with McCrory that while this may not be a perfect solution, it certainly provides a path forward. “Clearly, it will be unsatisfying to folks on both sides of this issue,” Bob Morgan, CEO of the Charlotte Chamber, admitted. If the city doesn’t let go of its genderless bathroom agenda, the city “will dig our hole deeper with the rest of the state,” he warned.

As most of the country recognizes by now, this is about a lot more than North Carolina. This is a struggle for the future of freedom, public safety, and common sense in America. In an interview with me [Monday] on “Washington Watch,” Governor McCrory reminded people of the magnitude of the conflict. “It’s a sad commentary that North Carolina is a target of the HRC group and gives the impression that this is just a North Carolina battle when it’s a United States battle.” The question here is a national one: will our nation bow down to the Left’s extreme definition of human norms that we’ve used for centuries — or will it stand with leaders like Governor McCrory, who believe in privacy, liberty, and freedom from ideological terrorism?

Originally published here.

ADF Takes Highland in Bathroom Fight

What kind of government takes away funding for special needs kids to force a district’s hand on genderless bathrooms? Yours! In one of the worst examples of the Obama administration’s obsession with the transgender agenda, the president’s Department of Education is threatening to pull the financial rug out from under the needy kids of Ohio’s Highland School District because it refuses to open its locker room, shower, and restroom doors to children of both sexes.

Fortunately, our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) are stepping in to point out the absurdity of this position in court, where the two sides will duke it over the only issue this administration seemingly cares about. ADF’s Doug Wardlow, who’s helping to represent the Columbus-area schools, can’t believe that the administration would put its sexual extremism above the well-being of area kids. “Punishing a school district merely for doing its duty to protect the privacy and dignity of all of its students isn’t only unjust, it also makes no sense whatsoever,” he told reporters before [yesterday’s] hearing. “The federal government has no business holding funding reserved for special needs and underprivileged children hostage simply to strong-arm the district into complying with an unrelated and lawless demand — the demand to give students access to places like locker rooms and showers that are reserved for students of the opposite sex. The court should stop the Department of Education from revoking the district’s funding or otherwise punishing the district while its lawsuit proceeds.”

ADF will do everything it can to stop the Obama DOE and DOJ from creating more victims like Gretchen Flores, who is just one of the countless stories of abuse made possible by access like this. (Watch her story and others in this powerful ADF video.) Clearly, the Obama administration will stop at nothing to advance this agenda, which they’re willing to risk an entire generation of children to accomplish. We tip our hats to groups like ADF who are standing in the gap for families and school districts who refuse to sacrifice their children on this altar of gender anarchy.

Originally published here.