Huckabee Opposes Transgender Military Service As ‘Social Experiment’ At GOP Debate (Video)

Mike Huckabee ensured his reputation as a bombastic religious conservative was protected at Thursday night’s GOP debate.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was considered by many to have delivered one of the more successful performances at Thursday night’s Fox News GOP presidential primary debate. The bombastic Baptist minister had an ample arsenal from which to shoot quips and catchy one-liners, and he was happy to do so at every opportunity.

“Governor Huckabee, the culture of the American military is definitely changing,” Fox’s Bret Baier began his question. “Women are moving into combat roles. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has obviously been dropped. And now Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently directed the military to prepare for a moment when it is welcoming transgender persons to serve openly. As commander in chief, how would you handle that?”

Huckabee, true to form, had a quick – and nasty – response.

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“The military is not a social experiment. The purpose of the military is kill people and break things,” Huckabee answered, ignoring the fact that in the U.S., the military indeed has always been a tool for social issues advancement.

“It’s not to transform the culture by trying out some ideas that some people think would make us a different country and more diverse. The purpose is to protect America. I’m not sure how paying for transgender surgery for soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines makes our country safer,” he posited.

In fact, Huckabee is wrong.

After “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed, lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members reported they felt more successful and better able to do their jobs, not having to hide who they are. Likewise, transgender service members also feel more productive and successful when they’ve received support from their supervisors.

Huckabee opposed repeal of DADT, and he opposes transgender service members. Before DADT was repealed, there were an estimated 65,000 LGBT active service members in the U.S. military. 

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Huckabee concluded his attack by attacking President Obama’s proper decision to reduce the number of active duty service members.

“We’ve reduced the military by 25 percent under President Obama. The disaster is that we’ve forgotten why we have a military. The purpose of it is to make sure that we protect every American, wherever that American is, and if an American is calling out for help, whether it’s in Benghazi or at the border, then we ought to be able to answer it. We’ve not done that because we’ve decimated our military.”

Imagine, Governor, how throwing out 65,000 LGBT service members – 15,000 of whom are transgender – would actually decimate our military.

Watch:

 

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Image: Screenshot via Fox News/YouTube