Last Friday President Trump issued a formal directive for the Department of Defense to reverse the decision by former President Obama to allow transgenders to serve in the US military. Noting that transgenders had been banned from serving up until just last summer, the reasoning was fairly benign:

The previous Administration failed to identify a sufficient basis to conclude that terminating the Departments’ longstanding policy and practice would not hinder military effectiveness and lethality, disrupt unit cohesion, or tax military resources, and there remain meaningful concerns that further study is needed to ensure that continued implementation of last year’s policy change would not have those negative effects.

The outcry from sexual activists was swift, with Ashley Broadway-Mack — the activist “devout Christian” homosexual milspouse — calling on “Congress or the courts” or just about anybody to “take action to reverse Trump’s policy.”

Of course, it isn’t “Trump’s policy”, as the President’s memorandum notes, and gender-based activists are flailing for a course of action because they likely realize there isn’t really anything they can do. President Obama removed the policy with little fanfare — and President Trump can reinstate it with the same.

Retired US Army Chaplain (Gen) Doug Carver — formerly Chief of Chaplains for the US Army — called for prayer for senior leaders and their policy implementation:

We must pray that this policy avoids the disruption of military commanders’ strategic focus, leader and unit development and the intensive training cycle required for deployment to a combat environment.

Though the memorandum makes no reference to religion, that didn’t stop Michael “Mikey” Weinstein from trying to coattail the controversy. Laughably portraying it as an attack by President Trump on our Nation’s “moral fabric,” Weinstein said he is representing troops

in their brutal civil rights fight against fundamentalist Christian religious extremism and oppression in America’s military.

Weinstein’s claim is asinine, given there aren’t any “civil rights fight[s]” (brutal or otherwise) occurring in the US military involving “fundamentalist Christians”. If there were, Weinstein would be all over the press using them to raise money — but Mikey has been skunked so far in 2017. The press release is little more than Weinstein’s attempt to attach the MRFF to the “anti-Trump” movement as a means of publicity.

If there’s any doubt, consider that Weinstein is the first to cry “death threat!” if someone looks at him sideways — yet it is Mikey Weinstein who is referring to the President of the United States as “Caligula”. Caligula was the Roman Emperor who only survived four years in office — because he was assassinated by his own troops. Weinstein probably has a running estimate of how much money he could bring in if President Trump attacked him in a tweet.

Weinstein would probably like nothing more than to position himself as “anti-Trump,” despite the issue having nothing to do with his Military Religious Freedom Foundation. There will likely be lawsuits made, but it is exceedingly unlikely the ban on enlistment would be reversed. What to do with those who have “come out” since the policy change last year remains an open question of fairness — on both sides.

Think this is much ado about nothing? You’re not the only one. There are millions of people in the US military’s total force. The Pentagon’s current estimate is that “a couple hundred” are affected by these policies.  For all the drama you’d think there were hundreds of thousands of transgender troops and meant the success or failure of the military’s ability to fight a war.

In fact, it’s about little more than using the military to alter society’s acceptance and normalization of non-normative sexualities.

Also at the Stars and Stripes (and here, and here, and here), FoxNews, Religion Clause, and OneNewsNow.

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