There may be privates in the Army, but there’s no privacy. That may be the biggest takeaway from the mandatory “transgender soldiers training,” which took place on bases across the country Tuesday. In a major break from precedent, the military’s largest branch is warning female soldiers to expect biological men in their showers. That’s just one of the mind-blowing changes the Army is bracing for on July 1st, along with “male pregnancies” and taxpayer-funded gender reassignment. Unfortunately, this will be the new normal for the U.S. military until the Trump administration steps in and frees the Pentagon from the grip of the Obama years.

As most service members will tell you, Obama’s radicalism didn’t end when his term did. The social extremism that characterized the last eight years still haunts the Defense Department at a time when the military can least afford it. With ISIS torching its way across the Middle East, our troops shouldn’t be torn between its role securing America and securing the Left’s radical social agenda. The administration needs to decide: Does it want an army of cultural guinea pigs or a lethal force defending America? Because the latest crises prove that our military can’t — and shouldn’t have to — do both.

For now, though, the Army has no choice but to ready its ranks for the latest wave of social engineering. In slides released by branch leaders Wednesday, Americans got a taste of how far the military has departed from the proud warfighting traditions of the past. In perhaps the most shocking development, soldiers are advised that they “must accept living and working conditions that are often austere, primitive, and characterized by little or no privacy.” Among other things, service members are ordered to use the billeting, bathroom, and shower facilities associated with their “gender marker.” If women express discomfort “showering with a female who has male genitalia,” it will be up to the commander to make accommodations — or not. In some situations, as FRC’s Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin (U.S. Army-Ret.) points out, there’s no such luxury. In infantry units or battlefield scenarios, leaders don’t have time to sort out bathing schedules.

“Given that America doesn’t have a strategy to defeat ISIS or win the war in Afghanistan, it seems to me that we should be spending our time and resources defeating terrorists, instead of paying people to come up with ridiculous policies like this one,” said a frustrated Gen. Boykin. “It does nothing to improve readiness or to fight and win the nation’s wars — which is the only question leaders should care about.” Just think of the millions of dollars it took to develop and implement this training for every soldier and civilian employed by the Army. And every cent spent on this politically correct exercise is money that could have gone to preparing troops for war. Every second wasted in transgender etiquette is time that could have been spent on the rifle range or in real training.

What’s worse, sexual assault and rape are already sky-high in the military. Surely, the DOD’s answer isn’t throwing open the women’s showers to naked men. That’s not only dangerous, but degrading. In the real world, public indecency is a crime. No man can walk down the street and expose himself to women. But in the military, we’re going to say this is the price of “inclusivity”? It’s absurd. As the dad of three daughters, I can tell you that if this policy is implemented, I’ll be like the millions of other fathers and grandfathers who would never recommend that their daughters enter the military. And in an Army that’s shrunk to World War II levels, that’ll hurt both recruiting and retention.

Here’s another one you can put in your “I-never-thought-I’d-see-the-day” file: The Army’s policy on male pregnancy. In one of its sample vignettes, troops are told to imagine that a soldier has “complete Army gender transition from female to male as indicated in DEERS. The soldier did not have sex reassignment surgery, and recently stopped taking male hormones in order to try and start a family. Today, the soldier approached his commanding offer to discuss his newly confirmed pregnancy.” According to the Army, “Transgender soldiers will be treated the same as any other soldier with a given medical condition.” That means “all pregnant soldiers will receive prenatal care and are entitled to all relevant medical care, administrative entitlements, and leave prescribed under service policies. Commanders and units will comply with all policies related to pregnant soldiers.” No wonder the Army and Marine Corps have asked for a two-year delay on implementing the guidance. They’ll need that time to add paternity wards!

The moral landmines left behind by Obama are about to detonate — and in 14 days, when America officially rolls out the red carpet for a group of emotionally unstable recruits, the effects will be catastrophic. Of course, the good news is that putting the brakes on this distraction is as easy as issuing a memo. If Donald Trump and Secretary Mattis truly care about rebuilding the military, they have two weeks to prove it.

Originally published here.

An Earnest Hemingway’s Takes on SPLC

Is the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) hate labeling actually dangerous? There’s a House leader lying in a hospital bed with a gunshot wound who might say yes. Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) is still in critical condition after a fan of the SPLC tried to kill as many Republican members as possible at a congressional baseball practice. Although the FBI hasn’t confirmed a motive for the shooter, his Facebook profile would certainly seem to suggest one: outrage at conservatives. And while no one knows whether James Hodgkinson targeted Scalise, my friend and former legislative colleague is still prominently featured on the SPLC’s website.

That hits especially close to home for FRC, which came dangerously close to a massacre itself when a gunman inspired by SPLC opened fire in our lobby. A federal court later linked SPLC to that first case of domestic terrorism in DC. Now, five years later, SPLC is still fanning the flames that leads to violent acts like Hodgkinson. “We’re aware that the SPLC was among hundreds of groups that the man identified as the shooter ‘liked’ on Facebook,” the organization’s president admitted Wednesday. “I want to be as clear as I can possibly be: The SPLC condemns all forms of violence. We have worked for decades to combat domestic terrorism and violence based on hate.”

But SPLC’s rhetoric can’t cover up its record. As Mark Hemingway tweeted, “Southern Poverty Law Center, which has made quite a lot of hay unfairly accusing right of instigating violence, has to eat crow today.” Over at the Daily Caller, Mark Steyn didn’t mince words. “The Left wants to denormalize and dehumanize, to use your words, its political opposition… They don’t have a debate in which they demolish [a conservative’s] arguments. They don’t want to win the debate. They want to prevent the debate from taking place… If you have people like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has become fabulously wealthy by labeling everyone they disagree with as a hate group, if you keep calling everybody a hater, and in fact, if your organization calls people haters, you are the hater.”

Mark Tapson at Truth Revolt couldn’t help but note the irony. “So the Southern Poverty Law Center has no problem painting right-wingers as racist [or homophobic] scum but claims innocence when those right-wingers are targeted for death.”

Originally published here.

70 More Reasons to Stop Planned Parenthood

Senate leaders are worried about losing two Republicans by defunding Planned Parenthood — but they should probably be more concerned about the 70 they’d lose in the House if they don’t! That’s how many members signed a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and three other committee chairmen urging him not to mess with the pro-life language in the health care bill. Like so many conservatives (inside and outside Congress), they agree that there’s a lot to negotiate in the Obamacare repeal — but ending the partnership with America’s biggest abortion business isn’t one of them.

“While there have been differences of opinion on the best way to fix our nation’s health care system, the pro-life majority in the House of Representatives has reached consensus that any health care legislation must abide by the overarching principle that abortion is not health care, and that therefore, elective abortion, abortion providers, and health plans that include elective abortion should not be subsidized,” they write.

“The House-passed American Health Care Act of 2017, H.R. 1628, applied these principles by including statutory protections against funding abortion under any current and future tax credits utilized under this bill, or any other form of government assistance for the purchase of health care; and reallocating funds away from certain abortion providers to community health centers. As you move forward with health care legislation in the Senate, we encourage your continued prioritization of these pro-life principles.”

Defunding Planned Parenthood, a group whose name is synonymous with scandal, is not only what President Trump promised but what millions of voters expect. If Republicans have any hope of replacing the worst failure of the Obama years, it starts by protecting the most basic right of any American: life.

Let your senators know that dropping the Planned Parenthood defund is the surest way to lose your support. Click here to contact both of them.

Originally published here.

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