Five years ago today, the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy officially came to an end. And, five years later, conservatives’ dire predictions about the consequences of the policy’s repeal have yet to come true.
This falls into a familiar pattern. Many of the same activists and commentators have made similarly apocalyptic—and unfounded—warnings about the effects of hate crimes laws and marriage equality.
Here are just five of the bogus claims made by those who opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:
1) Diapers
Just two years ago, Gordon Klingenschmitt, a former Navy chaplain who is now a Colorado Republican state lawmaker, approvingly read a quote from Chaplain John R. Kauffman, who said that gay service members will be “taking breaks on the combat field to change diapers all because their treacherous sin causes them to lose control of their bowels.”
2) Bestiality
Conservative columnist Laurie Roth said that thanks to the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, military service members would be free to have intimate moments with goats and boars.
3) ‘Virtual Genocide’
In 2011, American Family Radio host Bryan Fischer predicted that after the policy’s repeal took effect “the homosexual lobby” would be “committing one hate crime after another against service members” who objected to homosexuality.
“We are going to see principle-driven officers, one after another, become the victims of systematic hate crimes,” he said. “This is going to be a pogrom. This is going to be virtual genocide, military genocide, career genocide for people of faith in the military perpetrated by the homosexual lobby.”
4) Reinstatement of the Draft
Before the congressional vote to repeal the policy, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins criticized President Obama’s “drive to repeal the ban on open homosexuality in the military” by warning that it “could have this unintended consequence: It could bring back the draft.”
He said that supporters of the repeal wanted to “appease a small base of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi” and “sacrifice the lives of young Marines who are putting their life on the line for this nation.”
“I don’t know how they can live with that, knowing that the blood of those young Marines will be on their hands,” he added.
Perkins’ fellow Religious Right activist Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness similarly warned that the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell “could put remaining troops in greater danger” and “break the All-Volunteer Force.”
“The draft will return with a vengeance and out of necessity,” Fischer wrote. “What young man wants to voluntarily join an outfit that will force him to shower naked with males who have a sexual interest in him and just might molest him while he sleeps in his bunk?”
5) ‘Sitting Around Getting Massages All Day’
In 2014, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said that gay service members, just like in Ancient Greece, won’t perform well in battle because they will be “sitting around getting massages all day” from their same-sex lovers rather than preparing for battle, making them “vulnerable to terrorism.”
