Elaine Donnelly, a woman with no military training and little understanding of the military, runs the Center for Military Readiness, a “think-tank” devoted to opposing the open inclusion of LGBT citizens (and women) in the military. According to her missives, the United States Military just isn’t as strong as the rest of the militaries around the world (like Israel, the United Kingdom, etc.), in which open gays and lesbians serve alongside straight servicemembers. In short, Elaine Donnelly is a know-nothing demagogue who has far more of a voice than her merit deserves.

And now, via Think Progress, Elaine has given an interview to Secure Freedom Radio’s Frank Gaffney, in which she claims that the true culprit in the Abu Ghraib scandal was women serving alongside men in the military:

DONNELLY: Ok, now how are we going to deal with four different sexual groups, say in Special Operations summaries. How’ that going to work? Or are we going to have the kind of military ‚Äî and he clearly suggests this ‚Äî he says yes, we have women in the military. We all support women in the military. However, he says that everything has been going on just fine without incident. Umm, what was that Abu Ghraib scandal all about? It started out as misconduct between men and women and then it steadily deteriorated into abuse of prisoners. The common denominator is lack of discipline. Once you break down discipline, good order and discipline and morale, everything that’ required for unit cohesion, you undermine the culture and the strength of the armed forces. This man obviously doesn’t get that.

Again, she’s a know-nothing demagogue. She seems to be unaware that there are multitudes of decorated female servicemembers, as well as LGBT servicemembers, and it’s done nothing to damage discipline. And, Think Progress also points out that Ms. Donnelly doesn’t seem to have a clue what the Abu Ghraib scandal was all about in the first place, as it’s part of a revealed pattern of torture techniques in Iraq and Afghanistan that started at the very top, with Rumsfeld’s Defense Department. Perhaps Ms. Donnelly doesn’t watch the news very much (and I wouldn’t expect a demagogue of her kind to stay informed about much of anything), but we’ve been discussing the incidence of U.S.-sanctioned torture in these conflicts in our national discourse for several years now. Abu Ghraib was merely the first glimpse of the problem. Torture has happened at CIA black sites, at Guant?°namo, and a recent report in Harper’s exposes* a previously unknown black site at Guant?°namo referred to as Camp “No,” run either by the CIA or by J-SOC, in which Americans may have tortured detainees who had never been charged with a crime, quite literally, to death.

So no, Ms. Donnelly, you’re simply making things up again, in service of your bigotry. It’s important to remember that our foes who fight against the LGBT community tend to also be fierce misogynists. The fact that a few of them have two X chromosomes is irrelevant. They have simply bought into the ideology that states that all human beings should be subservient to straight, white, Christian men. Donnelly believes that women who serve simply don’t “know their place.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Donnelly repeats her tired claims that the repeal of DADT is part of some monolithic “Gay Agenda” which seeks to undermine the military. Same old, same old, like a broken record.

Meanwhile in the real world, General John Shalikashvili, who implemented the policy in the first place, stated this week that it’s time to repeal the DADT policy. Ever the tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist, Pam Spaulding reported that in 2007, when Shalikashvili first came out against the policy, Ms. Donnelly claimed that the general had been coerced into changing his mind by Big Gay Activists, due to the fact that he had recently had a stroke.

What say you now, Elaine? No, just kidding. No one cares what you think.

If you’re interested in what other know-nothings on the Religious Right have to say about the repeal of DADT, Kyle at Right Wing Watch has posted a round-up of their reactions.

Last night, President Obama called for the policy to be repealed this year. We shall see if he follows through, but John Aravosis looked at the language he used and found reasons to be encouraged, and indeed White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett stated that the process for repeal will start right away.

I’m cautiously optimistic.

*If you haven’t read that Harper’s piece, please find thirty minutes to do so. It’s extremely important.

In the not too distant past, most Americans couldn’t tell a Pashtun from a cartoon, a Sunni from a Moonie or a Kurd from bean curd. Then came 9-11 and we learned our very survival depended on securing freedom for people we barely knew existed. Exorcising the region’ demons through democracy was so important, we were told, that America would pay for the effort in blood and bankruptcy.

Despite the bumbling and fumbling of the war effort, the bitter divisions in our country and the wheelbarrows of dough dumped in the desert, there was always the faint hope that a better Middle East might just emerge from the mess. And, whatever one thinks of the two wars, Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were real villains who were vanquished.

The idea, of course, was that once these monsters were slain, they’d be replaced with the sane. But, the monsters have multiplied and Sasquatch has morphed into a bevy of Big Foots (or is it Big Feet?). It appears that for all of our sacrifice — and that of the secular Iraqi and Afghanistani people — the crazies are back in control. Or, at least fanatics have instilled enough fear that “mainstream” Iraqi and Afghanistani politicians are tripping over themselves to please and appease. (Read More)

A poll analysis released last week by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life confirmed what Iraq-war critics suspected: White conservative evangelicals, and persons who attend church weekly, were more likely than the general U.S. population to violate New Testament ethics forbidding violence and torture.

While the effectiveness and reliability of torture against terror suspects to prevent mass casualties is hotly debated, conservative evangelicals appear to have the fewest reservations about torture regardless of individual circumstances:

Nearly 20 percent of white evangelicals and white Catholics favor torture “often,” with little regard for the severity of the alleged past offense, the reliability of the allegations, or the proximity of a given suspect to any plans for future attacks.

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, former president of the Chicago Theological Seminary, finds this deviation from New Testament values — by those who claim to be most devout — worthy of concern. Writing in The Washington Post, Thistlethwaite comments:

One possible way to interpret this extraordinary Pew data is cultural. White evangelical Protestants tend to be culturally conservative and they make up a large percentage of the so-called Republican “base”. Does the approval of torture by this group demonstrate their continuing support for the previous administration? That may be.

But I think it is possible, even likely, that this finding has a theological root. The UN Convention Against Torture defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person…” White Evangelical theology bases its view of Christian salvation on the severe pain and suffering undergone by Jesus in his flogging and crucifixion by the Romans. This is called the “penal theory of the atonement”–that is, the way Jesus paid for our sins is by this extreme torture inflicted on him.

For Christian conservatives, severe pain and suffering are central to their theology. This is very clear in the 2002 Mel Gibson movie, The Passion of the Christ. Evangelical Christians flocked to this movie, promoted it and still show it in their churches, despite the fact that it is R-rated for the extraordinary amount of violence in the film. It is, in fact, the highest grossing R-rated movie in the history of film. The flogging of Jesus by the Romans goes on for fully 40 minutes. It is truly the most violent film I have ever seen.

The message of the movie, and a message of a lot of conservative Christian theology, is that severe pain and suffering are not foreign to Christian faith, but central.

Of course, this is an interpretation of Jesus life, death and resurrection that I reject. It is also an interpretation that I believe has done a lot of harm through the centuries.

The writer is being charitable: Conservative evangelicals’ broad acceptance of pre-emptive torture is heresy. It constitutes an assault upon morality and human dignity. And as Exodus International has relegated itself to a far-right fringe of the evangelical movement, it has become a participant in terror and torture.

Since board member Don Schmierer co-keynoted an antigay, pro-terror conference in Uganda in March, Exodus International has applauded Schmierer’s action and has refused to officially condemn any portion of the conference and ensuing antigay terror campaign.

In unofficial personal statements, Exodus President Alan Chambers and spokesman Randy Thomas have:

• defended a supposed right of Ugandan churches to wage vigilante terror and violence against gay Ugandans;
• denied responsibility for their role in knowingly encouraging Schmierer to participate in the March conference, after they were warned by pro-equality and human-rights advocates;
• resorted to elliptical statements of what they don’t believe, rather than what they do believe, regarding the specifics of their role in Ugandan human rights violations and more generally regarding criminalization, imprisonment, and forced ex-gay therapy for homosexuals

Until Exodus punishes its rogue leaders and officially condemns human rights atrocities, imprisonment, forced “therapy,” Exodus must be regarded as a hate group — one that seeks to intimidate, injure and kill gay people even as it destroys Christian families and churches with poisonous misinformation about parenting, sexual orientation, and true faith.

From Doug Ireland of the Gay City News, April 30:

As the murder campaign targeting Iraqi gays intensifies, a leading Arabic television network last week revealed the use of a horrifying new form of lethal torture against Iraqi gay men – anti-gay Shiite death squads are sealing their anuses with a powerful glue, then inducing diarrhea, which leads to a painful and agonizing death. The use of this stomach-turning new torture was first reported by the Al Arabiya network, which is headquartered in the United Arab Emirates and was alerted to the story by a leading Iraqi feminist and human rights activist.

Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), told Al Arabiya that the torture substance “is an Iranian-manufactured glue that, if applied to the skin, sticks to it and can only be removed by surgery. After they glue the anuses of homosexuals, they give them a drink that causes diarrhea. Since the anus is closed, the diarrhea causes death. Videos of this form of torture are being distributed on mobile telephones in Iraq.”

Al Arabiya said its reporter confirmed the use of this anal torture by “visiting the Baghdad morgue in Bab-al-Moazaam in central Baghdad, where Neman Mohsen, the medical examiner, confirmed they have the bodies of seven homosexuals in the morgue. He said, ‘We were not able to identify the culprits, who dumped the bodies in front of the morgue and fled without being seen.’” A two-person team from Human Rights Watch (HRW) currently in Iraq to investigate persecution of LGBT people has also confirmed the use of this form of torture. In a widely-circulated email from Iraq, the head of HRW’s LGBT desk, Scott Long, said he and his colleague had gathered evidence which confirms the Al Arabiya report and that HRW would make its own detailed report after the organization’s two staffers return to the United States next week.

Yesterday, MSNBC’s World Blog posted additional information:

Iraq’ gay population is being targeted by militia groups in a wave of killings that has claimed the lives of up to 25 young men and boys in the past month.

“They know I am gay. I don’t know if I am going to be killed, this is up to God,” said Moyad, a 38-year-old Baghdad resident who would not give his last name out of fear for his safety.

Visibly frightened, he said that he has many friends who have been sadistically tortured, some even murdered. “They are sticking glue up their anuses; some hospitals refuse to treat them. Is it a war waged against homosexuals?” he asked.

Most of the attacks have happened in Baghdad’ Shia neighborhoods, and many believe that religious leaders have used Friday sermons in Sadr City as a platform to incite hatred and violence toward homosexuals. The bodies of three gay men were reported to have been found in Sadr City in April with pieces of paper bearing the word for “pervert” attached to them.

The language used by the perpetrators in Iraq is much the same as that used by Exodus International and its allies in March when they launched the current campaign of intimidation and violence against same-sex-attracted persons in Uganda:

Posters and leaflets have been distributed in the Baghdad neighborhoods of al-Shola, al-Hurya and Sadr City with orders to, “Cleanse Iraq from the crime of homosexuality.”

In Uganda, the campaign co-launched by Exodus International board member Don Schmierer vowed to “wipe out” homosexuality, while Exodus continues to promise U.S. antigay heterosexuals “freedom from homosexuality” — and, it logically follows, from homosexuals.

MSNBC continues:

Baghdad police didn’t respond to inquiries from NBC News about the attacks, but the surge in violence has gained attention by the international media.

In a letter to Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki in April, Amnesty International called for “urgent and concerted action” to stop the killings of men because of their sexual orientation.

Amnesty International expressed concern at the government’ failure to “publicly condemn the killings.” It urged the government to make sure that the killings are “promptly and effectively investigated, and to see that the perpetrators are brought to justice.” The letter also condemned statements from one senior police officer that,”appear to condone or even encourage the targeting of members of the gay community in Baghdad.” An Amnesty spokeswoman said there had not yet been a reply from Iraqi authorities.

The message of Exodus and NARTH, that homosexuality is a mental illness to be treated or eliminated, resonates well beyond U.S. borders and nations such as Uganda that are served by the Exodus Global Alliance. According to Towleroad:

English language newspaper The National, based in Abu Dhabi, reports on the recent executions of gay men in Iraq.

They interview a man they call Abu Muslim, who claims to be involved in the actual killings:

“We see this [homosexuality] as a serious illness in the community that has been spreading rapidly among the youth after it was brought in from the outside by American soldiers. These are not the habits of Iraq or our community and we must eliminate them…We had approval from the main Iraqi tribes here to liquidate those [men] copying the ways of women. Our aim is not to destabilise the security situation. Our aim is to help stabilise society…Although the Mahdi Army is today limited and in fact stalled, we cannot sit by with our arms crossed while these homosexuals flout the rules and ethics that must be followed under the Islamic religion. These homosexuals think that Iraq is changing and becoming a non-Muslim, liberal society but our tribal and religious customs allow us to punish them in the most severe way.”

Change is possible — social change, that is. But violent antigay religious leaders in Iraq, elevated and empowered by an incompetent U.S. occupation, are determined to use any means necessary to stop change.