Aaron Belkin is the director of the Palm Center, an LGBT “research” institute that has long advocated and funded studies to promote neosexuality. (In fact, it was founded by Belkin specifically to produce ‘research’ to support the repeal of DADT.) Last week, Belkin wrote an op-ed at The Hill claiming “LGBT inclusion holds all US military to same high standard.” His piece was in response to one by Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council published on the same site on December 8th entitled “A transgender military is a weaker, compromised military.”

Belkin begins his argument by engaging in a bit of revisionist history, claiming those who choose to participate in the LGBT lifestyle were historically prevented from serving in the military only because no one could figure out how to make it work [emphasis added]:

Both “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the transgender service ban were based on the belief that allowing LGBT military members to serve while acknowledging their identities would create unmanageable burdens — both social and medical — for comrades, commanders and senior leadership.

Contrary to Belkin’s asinine claim, the argument against socially normalizing neosexuality was not originally one of pragmatism. For millennia average society recognized homosexuality and other non-normalized sexual behaviors — including promiscuity, bestiality, incest, prostitution, etc. — as morally reprobate, deviant, abnormal, disqualifying of character, etc. Even if, in some cases, society tacitly permitted these behaviors, they were never officially permitted, supported, or celebrated.

Only in recent years did the moral argument fall out of favor.  Only then was it replaced by an “amoral” defense of — a “pragmatic” argument for — normal sexuality. Naturally, once society was able to nullify or overcome those pragmatic issues it became impossible to use that position to defend traditional values, morality notwithstanding.  (That is, in part, why some voices objected to abandoning the moral argument against homosexuality to begin with.)

Belkin then defends his position by citing…himself:

In recent decades, mountains of research has been conducted and consistently concluded that open LGBT service does not create the problems many thought it would.

The “research” he cited was his own Palm Center — an admittedly biased LGBT advocacy organization. As if to forestall that accusation, Belkin quickly claimed “the government and the military itself” had the same research [emphasis added]:

The overwhelming conclusion, as summarized by the RAND Corporation, which the Pentagon engaged to study LGBT military service three separate times over the past 25 years, is that open service has “little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness, or readiness” but has “benefits for all service members by creating a more inclusive and diverse force.”

But Aaron Belkin’s statement is at best misleading, and at worst outright false.

Notably, Belkin did not cite the report itself (PDF), but rather the RAND summary of the report. The report did not contain the statements Belkin cited.  Even within the summary RAND did not make the statements Belkin claimed — because he conveniently left out the surrounding context. The full statements are shown below, with Belkin’s cherry-picked citation underlined and important context emphasized:

The limited research on the effects of foreign military policies indicates little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness, or readiness. Commanders noted that the policies had benefits for all service members by creating a more inclusive and diverse force.

Belkin failed to acknowledge those statements were based on a limited assessment of foreign militaries. Belkin also failed to acknowledge it was the opinion of foreign “commanders” — not the policies of any institution, much less the US government or Pentagon — that claimed “benefits” for everyone.

That’s hardly an “overwhelming conclusion,” particularly given it was based on a simple (and “limited”) data point.

Much of the LGBT’s argument over the past few years has been some variation of “it’s not a big deal.”  That’s likely why those in the LGBT movement and those who (were required to) support them have always couched their stories in the most positive terms.  This goes back at least to the DoD’s DADT repeal survey, in which the public message was carefully crafted to imply support for repeal, though “fun with numbers” could actually have created the opposite message with precisely the same data.

Activists have also buried stories in which LGBT integration in the military was a big deal.

So why did Belkin feel the need to misrepresent the RAND report? He was probably motivated to make the less-than-forthright quotations given how much the context undermined the value of what he was trying to say.  In other words, the truth wasn’t good enough.

On a related note, Belkin then stepped in a trap of his own making. After minimizing the impact to the military by citing the “miniscule” number of transgenders affected by many of these policies, Belkin said

What the military needs is to draw on the widest possible pool of talent in the country.

There’s some truth to that statement — truth to which Belkin is clearly blind.

Which is the “widest possible pool of talent”: the estimated 4% of the US population that identifies as LGBT, or the nearly 30% of the US population that identifies as evangelical Christian?

If the US military is going to alienate one of those two groups — as it almost certainly will if it engages in promoting the ideology of the other — which one should they “discriminate” against, if the size of the “pool of talent” is the metric?

Add in the fact the US Constitution protects religious exercise — but not sexual behavior — and the answer should be obvious.

So why isn’t it obvious to those in the LGBT movement?

Aside: The day after Belkin’s piece went live, this was the lead story on FoxNews: “Air Force facing dire personnel shortage.”  Correlation isn’t causation, of course.  But it would be folly to assert the alleged use of the military as a tool for social experimentation/engineering hasn’t had a detrimental impact on recruiting and retention — particularly when the “widest possible pool of talent” has a strong (negative) opinion on those social practices.

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