The Democrats are trying to use the lame duck session of Congress to push through a repeal of the law signed by President Bill Clinton that prohibits homosexuals from serving in the U.S. military. 

It bears repeating that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is a misnomer. The law flatly prohibits homosexuals from serving in the U.S. military. President Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is simply a way around that law. It allows homosexuals to serve, in violation of U.S. law, as long as they don’t tell anybody. 

The American people must rise up as one and let their senators know that repealing this law is completely unacceptable. Here are just some of the reasons why: 

• A leaked version of the Pentagon’s survey of active service personnel, which will be made public on Nov. 30, indicates that 30% of active service members believe the repeal is problematic. Since almost a third of active duty personnel say this is a problem, there is thus absolutely no question that repeal will have a harmful effect on morale and cohesion. Repeal will have a harmful effect on recruitment and retention; in another survey, 24% of active duty personnel indicated that they either would resign or would consider resigning from the military if open homosexuals are allowed to serve. 

• The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely and securely at night. It must not be used as some giant laboratory for politically correct social engineering experiments. 

• The commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, Gen. James Amos, has pointedly said that the Marines he has talked to almost unanimously oppose repeal. General Amos said this is all about “unit cohesion, it’s about combat effectiveness.” No policy change should be made that does not improve readiness, and it is clear that allowing open homosexuals to serve will have the opposite effect. It will weaken rather than strengthen our military. 

• Repeal will be the end of careers for conservative officers. They will be forced to publicly affirm the normalcy of homosexual behavior if they want to advance in their careers, and the only alternative will be to resign from the military. Lt. Gen. Thomas Bostick, who is deputy chief of staff in charge of personnel for the U.S. Army, called soldiers and officers who oppose homosexuality on moral and religious grounds “racists and bigoted” and said “people opposing this new policy will need to get with the program, and if they can’t, they need to get out.” Thus our finest and most character-driven officers will be drummed out of our armed forces. 

• Repeal will mean the end of careers for conservative Christian chaplains, who have deeply held moral and spiritual objections to the normalization of homosexuality. This will bring to an end a tradition of conservative Christian chaplains that goes all the way back to our first commander-in-chief, George Washington, who made the appointing of such chaplains one of his first orders of business. General Washington knew that military success depended upon the spiritual strength of the military.  

A military that is weakened spiritually is a military that is a weakened fighting force. The ancient Scriptures still have it right: “Unless the Lord watches over a city, the watchmen stand guard in vain” (Psalm 127:1). The Founders understood this; our current crop of Pentagon leaders do not, and seem intent on making what will prove to be a fatal mistake. There is no quicker way to assign the United States to the scrap heap of history than to normalize homosexual behavior in our military. 

It’s time for all people of good will to contact their senators immediately and make it abundantly clear that repeal is bad for the military and bad for the United States. 

And the time to do it is today. The stakes could not be higher. 

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)