The reactions to President Donald Trump’s tweets last Wednesday announcing a ban on transgender individuals from serving in the military have continued pouring in this week. On Tuesday, 56 retired military officers spoke out against the announcement, warning that the policy, if implemented, “would degrade military readiness.”
Last week, the President, who himself obtained five deferments to avoid the military draft, tweeted he would “not accept or allow” transgender people to serve in the armed forces in any capacity. He claimed it would lead to tremendous medical costs and create widespread disruption.
In the four months since The New York Times first reported that authorities in Chechnya “were arresting and killing gay men,” evening cable and evening broadcast news programming has virtually ignored the story. Between April 1 and July 31, there were only three significant mentions in total across six networks — two news packages and one brief exchange — about the ongoing human rights abuses.
New Ways Ministry began publishing a “gay-friendly” parish list 20 years ago and had 33 parishes from 14 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, according to its blog. Now it has a robust representation with “well over 200 parishes listed.” The inaugural “gay-friendly” parish list also contained seven colleges “whose Catholic student communities were known to be gay-friendly.” Today, that college list is separate and has more than 100 schools.
A federal judge, sweeping aside objections from the Justice Department, has ordered the FBI to conduct a new search for decades-old documents about a U.S. government program to purge the federal workforce of gays and lesbians, including records on the role of a future chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in implementing the Cold War-era crackdown.
Last week, President Trump announced via Twitter that, after “consultation with my Generals and military experts,” the “United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.”
As military services await guidance following President Donald Trump’s announcement last week via Twitter of a ban on transgender service members, the commandant of the Coast Guard is speaking out, saying he has no intention of leaving transgender Coast Guardsmen out in the cold.
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