May 2, 2008

Elaine Donnelly: One Nasty, Anti-Gay, Misogynistic Piece of Work

The puckered face of misogyny.

Just received this press release from PFLAG…

PFLAG Condemns Misleading, Anti-Gay Campaign in Support of Military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Law; Calls New Web Advocacy Site More of Same Tired & Disproven Rhetoric

Washington, DC — Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) today called a new campaign in support of the federal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law misleading, offensive and disrespectful to America’s military personnel. The online advocacy website, www.americansforthemilitary.com, was launched by the conservative Center for Military Readiness and urges voters to sign a Congressional petition to continue dismissing lesbian, gay and bisexual service personnel from the armed forces.

“It is outrageous that some in our country would answer the service and sacrifice of their fellow citizens by calling for them to be fired simply because of who they are,” said PFLAG executive director Jody M. Huckaby. “Ms. Donnelly has recycled the same tired, misleading and disproven rhetoric that has been used for years to keep too many qualified Americans out of our armed forces. All the while, an estimated 65,000 LGBT Americans continue to proudly report for duty in our nation’s military and keep Americans, including Ms. Donnelly, safe and secure. PFLAG supports all of America’s military and their families, including LGBT service members. No amount of shrill fear-mongering will ever change the fact that our country is better because of their service.”

Calling efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” an “attack” on the armed forces, Donnelly calls for an “online Army” to support a continuation of the federal law, which results in at least two service personnel being dismissed every day. Despite polls showing that 79% of Americans support allowing gays to serve openly, the Michigan-based activist also claims voters have “insisted” the armed forces keep gays out of its ranks.

Meanwhile, retired, high-ranking military leaders, such as retired Joint Chiefs Chairman John Shalikashvili and Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy, USA (Ret.) have called for an end to the law, which is estimated to have cost taxpayers more than $364 million since its inception.

“Our national priority should be on the qualification of potential service members, not on discriminating against them because of who they are,” Colonel Daniel Tepfer, USAF (Ret.), a 23-year veteran who serves on PFLAG’s national board, said in a recent statement. “I know many stellar lesbian and gay troops who also served proudly, but who could not serve openly about their lives and their loved ones. Our national priority should be on the qualification of potential service members, not on discriminating against them because of who they are.”

“The best way to show pride in our troops is by saluting their service, not signing their pink slips,” Huckaby added. “This new campaign is not only disrespectful to our men and women in uniform, but it is also a disservice to their families, who also continue to be impacted by this unconscionable law.”

Now we’ll tell you who this Elaine Donnelly is, and why she’s one nasty, anti-gay, misogynistic piece of work — beginning with this barf-making excerpt from the far-right corner of Donnelly’s sad little world in which women hate women:

The globally distributed photo of a U.S. servicewoman holding a naked Iraqi prisoner by a leash “is exactly what feminists have dreamed of for years,” according to a military expert and frequent critic of attempts to integrate all aspects of the U.S. armed forces.

Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, also believes social-engineering in the military and the degradation of American culture are to blame for the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib facility near Baghdad.

“That demeaning photo of a female soldier with an Iraqi man on a leash — a woman had to have taken that picture,” Donnelly said. “And I understand the other woman soldier has admitted that she did.” …

Although certain feminists would not admit it publicly, “they’re probably quite fond” of the photo showing the Iraqi prisoner being held on a leash, said Donnelly. That’s “because it is demeaning to a man — any man.”

The feminists to whom Donnelly refers are “the ones who like to buy man-hating greeting cards and have this kind of attitude that all men abused all women. It’s a subculture of the feminist movement, but the driving force in it in many cases, certainly in academia,” she said. …

Abu Ghraib Abuse is a Feminist’s Dream, Says Military Expert
CNSNews.com, May 10, 2004

And now, the truth from the reality-based world:

Elaine Donnelly seemingly has no actual experience serving in the military, but that hasn’t stopped her from establishing a career as president of the Center for Military Readiness through which she crusades against women and gays in the military.

The Detroit News profiled Donnelly back in November 2006 and explained that she initially got her start in politics working alongside Phyllis Schlafly in defeating the Equal Rights Amendment…

Since then, Donnelly has made it her mission to ensure that women do not serve in combat and that gays do not serve at all while making outrageous statements, such as her suggestion that retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Shalikashvili recent call for the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy was somehow tied to a stoke he had suffered. …

Huckabee Stands Alone
PFAW, December 27, 2007

In 1993, Lt. Carey Lohrenz was one of the first women to become a Navy combat pilot. In October 1994, after Lohrenz had entered the F-14 program, and received her commission on the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Pacific Fleet, another woman who had joined her in this military assignment, Lt. Kara Hultgreen, was killed during a “combat readiness” training flight, because — and through no fault of hers — her engine failed as she was landing.

As it happens, Carey Lohrenz’s record shows she was a skilled pilot. She had received “first place honors” in her primary flight training. Her superior performance as a student entitled her the preference she wished, and she selected jets. Upon completion of her jet training, however, she was told there was no place for female jet pilots at that time, so she could serve as a flight instructor or leave the Navy. Then the Navy changed its policy, and she chose combat jets, for which she was qualified.

Hultgreen’s death brought new attention to female combat pilots. Among those interested was Elaine Donnelly, who heads an organization called the Center for Military Readiness. The Center says it is an independent, non-partisan, educational organization formed to take a leadership role in promoting sound military personnel policies in the armed forces. The organization is composed of hard-right civilians (for example, David Horowitz, Beverly LaHaye, and Phyllis Schlafly), along with a long list of retired military officers.

In fact, the Center is highly political. Elaine Donnelly’s agenda is keeping gays out of the military, keeping Hillary Clinton off the Senate Armed Services Committee, ensuring gender segregation in the military, and preventing women from engaging in combat. Or as one report summarizes it, Ms. Donnelly’s mission is to “monitor and measure [read: resist] the impact of new social policies that were imposed on the military to satisfy the demands of feminist and homosexual interest groups.”

In early 1995, Donnelly sent a letter to Senator Strom Thurmond, then Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, claiming that the Navy was promoting unqualified women in “the demanding and dangerous field of carrier aviation in the F-14 community.” In her letter, Donnelly quoted at length a Lieutenant Burns who had briefly been the flight instructor of both Lohrenz and Hultgreen. He sounds like a fellow who was not happy that the ladies got into the boys’ club.

In April 1995, Donnelly issued a special report from the Center for Military Readiness, publishing the letter to Thurmond - as well as Carey Lohrenz’s confidential training record, thinly disguised as the record of “Pilot B,” but clearly identifiable as Lohrenz, who was the only carrier-qualified female pilot in the Navy, not to mention on the USS Lincoln.

In May, 1995, Lt Carey Lohrenz lost her flight status — apparently as a result of Donnelly’s work. …

John Dean
Justice Scalia’s Thoughts, And A Few Of
My Own, on New York Times v. Sullivan
FindLaw, December 2, 2005

In recent years all the military services, except the Marine Corps, have eliminated separate training for male and female recruits. But the rape trial of army drill Sgt. Delmar Simpson, which ended yesterday in 18 convictions and scores of allegations against other instructors, have reignited debate about the wisdom of gender integrated training. Margaret Warner takes up the debate.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the joint gender training issue that has emerged from the army’s sex scandal. Margaret Warner takes up the debate.

MARGARET WARNER: In recent years all the military services, except the Marine Corps, have eliminated separate training for male and female recruits, but the rape trial of army drill Sgt. Delmar Simpson, which ended yesterday in 18 convictions and scores of allegations against other instructors, have reignited debate about the wisdom of gender integrated training. We get two views on the issue now. Andrea Hollen was the first female graduate of West Point in 1980. She served in the army until 1992, when she retired with the rank of major. She is now a software consultant in Denver. Elaine Donnelly is president of the Center for Military Readiness, a public policy group on military personnel issues. A longtime Republican activist in Michigan, she was named by President Bush to the Presidential Commission on Women in the Armed Forces in 1992. Welcome, both of you. Elaine Donnelly, what does the case involving Sgt. Simpson say about whether men and women should train together in the military?

ELAINE DONNELLY, Center for Military Readiness: Well, it sounds like perhaps justice was done. There were some victims at Aberdeen; however, the larger question is: Should we have coed basic training? …

Marching Side By Side
Online NewsHour (PBS), April 30, 1997

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April 25, 2008

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April 23, 2008

I wonder what St. Peter had to say when Cardinal Trujillo arrived?

Oh, no, I’m not being flippant about a death — I really do wonder what St. Peter had to say to Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, the Vatican’s poster boy for a Dark-Ages mentality on same-sex marriage, stem cell research, and a woman’s right to choose, and who, most (in)famously, outright lied when he said condoms don’t do anything to prevent the spread of HIV. (The World Health Organization set everybody straight — so to speak — on that note, reiterating that condoms are 90% effective, and failure was usually due to improper installation.)

Not, mind you, that I really believe in the whole St. Peter/Pearly Gates thing; I don’t. But I’m a happy little agnostic quite content with the idea that wherever we end up, it’s of our own making: If you expect to see St. Peter, or some Pearly Gates, then you will.

But I digress, as usual.

Serendipity flowing freely this week, it was ironic, but rather satisfying in a mean, Schadenfreude kind of way, to hear that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (chaired by one of our few remaining heroes in the Democratic Party, Henry Waxman [D-Calif.]) is holding a hearing today to re-open the issue of whether or not abstinence-only programs work.

The reality is: They don’t. But as long as Radical Righteous Religionists exist — and as long as they maintain their stranglehold on our government — the reality of the situation needs to be hammered into many thick skulls before the U.S. gives up this killer (and I do mean killer) notion that if you withhold contraceptives and fact-based sex education, people will stop getting STDs, and stop having abortions.

What needs to stop is handing over taxpayer dollars to “faith-based” institutions that do nothing to decrease the spread of STDs or unwanted pregnancies, and in fact only serve to exacerbate the situation(s).

Sometimes it seems the only way to a new Age of Englightenment is to outlive the troglodytes who think they can pray the AIDS away. And so it is with an uncomfortable mixture of both sadness and relief that we mark the passing of Cardinal Trujillo: There was a man who stood no hope of being enlightened and reborn into a healthy, helpful, reality-based way of thinking, and now he’s gone. That’s the sad part. The relief (which troubles me to admit to) comes with the knowledge that there is one less powerful person on this planet standing in the way of countless millions being equipped with the knowledge and tools they need to save their own lives, and the lives of many others.

I’ll leave you with that thought, and with the ACLU’s writeup on today’s abstinence-only hearing — so my “faith-based” readers might understand that I’m not some sort of heartless ghoul celebrating the death of an “enemy.”

You see, Cardinal Trujillo called every struggle for control over our own lives and our own bodies, from same-sex marriage to euthanasia, a “culture of death,” when the truth is that lying about condoms and stem cell research and all the rest kills people. It is the Cardinal Trujillos of this world who propagate a “culture of death.”

Evidence Once Again Shows Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs Don’t Work

WASHINGTON, DC — April 23 — The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing today titled “Domestic Abstinence-Only Programs: Assessing the Evidence.” The ACLU applauds Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) for bringing new attention to this deeply troubling policy and the committee’s willingness to examine the public health policy implications of abstinence-only programs. We look forward to the testimony of scientists, clinicians, researchers and youth activists who will report on the failures of abstinence-only education programs.

Their testimony is supported by research which has repeatedly shown that, at best, abstinence-only programs do not delay sexual initiation and, at worst, may actually cause harm by providing young people with dangerously inadequate and inaccurate information. A troubling recent report found teens in Florida, a state that relies on abstinence-only programs, who believed drinking a can of Mt. Dew would prevent unintended pregnancy, or drinking a capful of bleach would prevent HIV/AIDS.

In addition to the clear and compelling public health concerns of abstinence-only programs, the ACLU has submitted a statement to the committee addressing the civil liberties concerns raised by these programs. Abstinence-only programs censor information, reinforce gender stereotypes, provide inaccurate and misleading information, promote religion, serve a narrow ideological agenda, stigmatize lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth, and jeopardize the well-being of young people.

“The evidence leads to only one conclusion: abstinence-only programs represent a failed policy,” said Vania Leveille, legislative counsel at the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “They are driven by ideology and politics, rather than by science or good public health policy, and our young people are suffering as a result. Most troubling, they represent a purposeful campaign to mislead, distort, stifle and censor, and are part of a disturbing trend to politicize science. The ACLU urges congressional action to bring this failed policy to an end.”

Since 1996, the U.S. government has poured more than a billion dollars into abstinence-only education programs so ineffective and dangerous that seventeen states have refused funding. At a time when the administration emphasizes accountability in funding only programs with demonstrated success, the continued funding of unproven abstinence-only programs is unacceptable.

The ACLU’s statement to the committee is available here

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