The homosexual lobby versus national defense

I'm unhappy about the "No dogs or soldiers allowed" signs on our campuses. The most powerful force restricting the ability of our military to recruit the troops we need to fight for freedom and democracy is the homosexual lobby.

If you are a college student or a law school student in America today, you are unlikely to know just how remarkable your peers who serve in the military are. Worse yet, your college administrators deny you the opportunity to decide for yourself whether or not you'd like to join their ranks. The Ivory Tower academic elitists in many of America's most "prestigious" colleges and universities today are waging war against the military and working to keep recruiters off of their campuses.

The U.S. Supreme Court is now considering a case in which "elite" universities are suing the Pentagon to keep military recruiters off their campuses so they don't "corrupt" the academic environment. Their beef is a federal statute originally passed in 1994 known as the "Solomon Amendment" which provides that federal funding may be withheld from institutions of higher
education that refuse military recruiters the same opportunities afforded to recruiters from other companies.

Thirty-one law schools have joined under the banner of the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, claiming that they are being forced by the Solomon Amendment to "actively support military recruiters" who engage in "discriminatory hiring practices." The target of their protest, they claim, is the Clinton administration's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy toward open
homosexual service in the military. In other words, it is the powerful homosexual lobby who is damaging the ability of our military to recruit the troops we need to defend democracy.

In fact, colleges and universities have been trying to keep military recruiters and ROTC programs off campus for decades. Harvard, the school leading the charge against the Solomon Amendment, banished ROTC in 1969, forcing cadets to walk across town to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the past 36 years. Yale, Stanford, Columbia and Brown are among many other institutions that have shunned ROTC for decades.

Today's military relies on educated individuals joining the ranks as surgeons, JAG lawyers, chaplains and engineers. These vital roles could more easily and efficiently be filled, but for the bitter opposition on campuses by elitist professors, students and administrators.

Ironically, their freedom to protest is defended by the very people they are protesting. And, in so doing, they are spreading ill will toward who defend democracy.

It's more than a shame that the best and bravest of your young people – honorable, decent, caring, compassionate and heroic people -- aren't welcomed on America's college campuses.

I’m ashamed that my own alma mater, Stanford, is so unwelcoming to the self sacrificing heroes who defend the university’s status as a temple of free and open intellectual exploration.

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