Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial pick to oversee the Department of Defense and its 3.4 million military and civilian personnel, has a long history of anti-LGBTQ statements. According to multiple reports, Hegseth has opposed gay service members, labeling them a threat to military standards and a part of a “Marxist” agenda promoting “social engineering.”

“At least when it was an ‘Army of One,’ they were, you know, tough looking, go get ‘em army – but you’re right, that was the subtle shifting toward an individual ad campaign,” Hegseth told far-right podcaster Ben Shapiro, CNN reports. “Now you just have the absurdity of ‘I have two mommies and I’m so proud to show them that I can wear the uniform too.’ So they, it’s just like everything else the Marxists and the leftists have done. At first it was camouflaged nicely and now they’re just, they’re just open about it.”

Hegseth, now a former Fox News weekend co-host under fire for alleged sexual assault, alcohol abuse, an affinity for Christian nationalism, and mismanagement of two veterans’ charities, has repeatedly denigrated gays and lesbians, and expressed opposition to LGBTQ Americans serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, and women serving in the military — especially in combat roles.

RELATED: House Republican Says They Were Told ‘In Conference’ Hegseth Accusations ‘Were Anonymous’

“In his 2024 book ‘The War on Warriors’ and in subsequent media promotions this year. Hegseth described both the original ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ (DADT) policy and its repeal in 2011 as a ‘gateway’ and a ‘camouflage’ for broader cultural changes that he claims have undermined military cohesion and effectiveness,” CNN reports.

Studies before and after the repeal of DADT have proven LGBTQ service members serving openly do not diminish unit cohesion or impair military readiness. “The repeal of DADT has had no overall negative impact on military readiness or its component dimensions, including cohesion, recruitment, retention, assaults, harassment or morale,” a Palm Center report found one year after DADT repeal.

As MeidasTouch News reported Wednesday, Hegseth has “argued that allowing women and openly gay and lesbian individuals to serve undermines the readiness and effectiveness of the armed forces. He dismissed these inclusivity efforts as ‘social engineering’ aimed at satisfying political agendas rather than improving national security. In his words, the changes were about achieving symbolic milestones, such as having a female Navy SEAL, rather than maintaining operational excellence.”

Hegseth lamented on Fox News’ “Red Eye” in 2015 that America has a “military right now that is more interested in social engineering led by this president than they are in war fighting, So, as a result, through Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and women in the military and these standards, they’re going to inevitably start to erode standards because they want that one female special operator, that one female Green Beret, that one female Army Ranger, that one female Navy Seal, so they can put them on a recruiting poster and feel good about themselves and has nothing to do with national security.”

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“So it started, you know, we saw it under Clinton with the tinkering of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and the reasons for those changes,” Hegseth said in November on a podcast promoting his book, also according to CNN. “And I talked to some of the people involved in when that was changed, but it really happened, started to accelerate under Obama.”

And yet, when asked on Wednesday by CNN if he still holds that repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was a mistake, Hegseth grew silent and did not answer, ignoring the reporter (video below).

Hegseth has a long, documented history of anti-LGBTQ and anti-women statements and positions.

“The dumbest phrase on planet Earth in the military is our diversity is our strength,” Hegseth said on a podcast this year, ABC News reported last month.

“There aren’t enough lesbians in San Francisco to staff the 82nd Airborne like you need, you need the boys in Kentucky and Texas and North Carolina and Wisconsin,” Hegseth also said earlier this year, ABC noted. On a separate podcast, he “said that transgender soldiers are ‘not deployable’ because they are ‘reliant on chemicals’ and suggested that women should not serve in certain combat roles.”

“Everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat means casualties are worse,” Hegseth also said, ABC added. He also argued “that men are ‘more capable’ in combat roles because of biological factors.”

Hegseth, under fire, this week claimed he supports women in the military, but did not specifically state he supports women in combat roles.

“I strive to defend the pillars of Western civilization against the distractions of diversity,” Hegseth wrote in 2002 as publisher of The Princeton Tory, the university’s conservative student magazine, The New Yorker reported last month.

“In the same year that Hegseth was defending the West against diversity, he and the other editors of the Tory opined that the New York Times’ decision to publish announcements of same-sex marriages had opened the floodgates to incest and bestiality: ‘At what point does the paper deem a ‘relationship’ unfit for publication? What if we ‘loved’ our sister and wanted to marry her? Or maybe two women at the same time? A 13-year-old? The family dog?’”

And in a 2002 publisher’s note at The Tory, Talking Points Memo reported, Hegseth “declared that he was ‘not encouraged’ by the ‘educational principles … guiding our generation.’ Among other things, he cited the ‘encouragement and support’ for ‘homosexuality.'”

“In pieces for the Tory,” TPM continued, “Hegseth and the team he oversaw railed against efforts to promote diversity on campus and what they described as the immoral ‘homosexual lifestyle.'”

The New Yorker also reports that during Hegseth’s tenure, The Tory wrote: “boys can wear bras and girls can wear ties until we’re blue in the face, but it won’t change the reality that the homosexual lifestyle is abnormal and immoral.”

“Hegseth and The Tory’s editor also wrote: “Overwhelming majorities of Americans agree with the notion that homosexuality and heterosexuality are not moral equivalents.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Trump’s Defense Secretary pick, Pete Hegseth, has called allowing openly gay troops a “Marxist” push for social justice and said it “erodes” military standards.

He declined to clarify his comments when asked Wednesday by CNN.

Watch: www.cnn.com/2024/12/12/p…

[image or embed]

— Andrew Kaczynski (@kfile.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 9:48 AM

RELATED: ‘Swarm of MAGA Attacks’ Making Hegseth Confirmation Seem More Likely: Report

Image via Reuters

Despite public opinion polls that find the majority of Americans support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the incoming Trump administration is forging ahead with President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to begin his mass deportations of millions of people “on day one.” That will now include the green lighting of arrests of undocumented immigrants who happen to be sick in the hospital, worshipping or marrying in a church, synagogue, or mosque, or studying — or even teaching — in a school classroom, according to an NBC News exclusive report.

Since 2011, under the Obama administration, ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, has been banned from, as NBC reported, “arresting undocumented people at or near so-called sensitive locations, including houses of worship, schools and hospitals or events such as funerals, weddings and public demonstrations without approval from supervisors.”

That ban has been described as a “fundamental” principle by the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. “Adherence to this principle is one bedrock of our stature as public servants,” he noted.

As Trump positions himself to achieve his promised goal of enacting the “largest deportation operation in American history,” that ban will be rescinded to remove as many barriers as possible that stand in his way.

READ MORE: House Republican Says They Were Told ‘In Conference’ Hegseth Accusations ‘Were Anonymous’

The Biden administration had expanded the ICE policy to include “colleges or mental health institutions, and even places where religious studies were happening,” according to NBC News’ Julia Ainsley in her on-air report Wednesday. She noted that the ban will also be lifted on arrests at events, including rallies.

“So that means if you have a protest against mass deportations where you would expect undocumented immigrants to show up, that could be a place that ICE could target for arrest,” Ainsley explained.

Immigration experts oppose allowing arrests at sensitive places, believing that access to them, including by undocumented immigrants, benefits society as a whole.

“Immigration enforcement has always required a balance. In the past, Presidents of both parties have recognized that merely because it may be lawful to make arrests at hospitals and schools doesn’t mean it’s humane or wise public policy,” Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told NBC News. “We don’t want people with contagious diseases too scared to go to the hospital or children going uneducated because of poorly considered deportation policies.”

“There are churches that have historically served as sanctuaries, knowing that ICE can’t come in and arrest them there, and they do that in communities to offer a safe space for migrants,” Ainsley reported, noting that now, faith leaders and others are “worried not only because of policies like these, but because what they see as a change, a shift to the right, in the American public where people are more in favor of deportations than they were previously, and they’re worried about threats to them or to backlash if they continue to give migrant sanctuary within their spaces.”

But as Vox reported in October, Americans are more supportive of deportations only when there are no other legal avenues open to the undocumented, like a path to citizenship.

READ MORE: Trump’s Guilfoyle Nomination Surfaces Allegations Old and New

A Pew Research poll in August, Vox reported, found “that about 6 in 10 registered voters say that undocumented immigrants should be allowed to ‘stay in the country legally, if certain requirements are met.’ And a similar share, 58 percent, favored ‘allowing undocumented immigrants to legally work and stay in the country if they are married to a US citizen.'”

Trump, in an NBC News “Meet the Press” interview on Sunday said he supports deporting legal U.S. citizens who are children of undocumented immigrants, in what he called an effort to not break families apart.

In September of 2021, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memo explaining the ban on arrests in sensitive areas.

“In our pursuit of justice, including in the execution of our enforcement responsibilities, we impact people’s lives and advance our country’s well-being in the most fundamental ways. It is because of the profound impact of our work that we must consider so many different factors before we decide to act. This can make our work very difficult. It is also one of the reasons why our work is noble,” Secretary Mayorkas wrote. “When we conduct an enforcement action – whether it is an arrest, search, service of a subpoena, or other action – we need to consider many factors, including the location in which we are conducting the action and its impact on other people and broader societal interests. For example, if we take an action at an emergency shelter, it is possible that noncitizens, including children, will be hesitant to visit the shelter and receive needed food and water, urgent medical attention, or other humanitarian care.”

“To the fullest extent possible, we should not take an enforcement action in or near a location that would restrain people’s access to essential services or engagement in essential activities. Such a location is referred to as a ‘protected area.’ This principle is fundamental. We can accomplish our enforcement mission without denying or limiting individuals’ access to needed medical care, children access to their schools, the displaced access to food and shelter, people of faith access to their places of worship, and more. Adherence to this principle is one bedrock of our stature as public servants.”

Mayorkas offered some examples of sensitive areas where arrests should not be made. Presumably, under the Trump administration, arrests will be allowed in some or all of these locations.

They include:

“A school, such as a pre-school, primary or secondary school, vocational or trade school, or college or university.”

“A medical or mental healthcare facility, such as a hospital, doctor’s office, health clinic, vaccination or testing site, urgent care center, site that serves pregnant individuals, or community health center.”

“A place of worship or religious study, whether in a structure dedicated to activities of faith (such as a church or religious school) or a temporary facility or location where such activities are taking place.”

“A place where children gather, such as a playground, recreation center, childcare center, before- or after-school care center, foster care facility, group home for children, or school bus stop.”

“A social services establishment, such as a crisis center, domestic violence shelter, victims services center, child advocacy center, supervised visitation center, family justice center, community-based organization, facility that serves disabled persons, homeless shelter, drug or alcohol counseling and treatment facility, or food bank or pantry or other establishment distributing food or other essentials of life to people in need.”

“A place where disaster or emergency response and relief is being provided, such as along evacuation routes, where shelter or emergency supplies, food, or water are being distributed, or registration for disaster-related assistance or family reunification is underway.”

“A place where a funeral, graveside ceremony, rosary, wedding, or other religious or civil ceremonies or observances occur.”

Image via Reuters

A key Republican who sits on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees is defending Donald Trump’s embattled nomination of former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense amid a flurry of allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment, on-the-job use of alcohol and “aggressive drunkenness,” mistreatment of women — an accusation by his own mother — an affinity for Christian nationalism, and financial mismanagement of two veterans’ charities.

U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA), who has an extensive résumé in the U.S. Armed Forces and is a medical doctor, says he and his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill were “told” that the allegations against Hegseth were “anonymous,” that Hegseth himself does not know who made the allegations, and that Hegseth is “saying to us … ‘it’s an empty allegation of an anonymous tip.’ ”

But Hegseth has admitted to the sexual encounter, although he has “maintained that their encounter was consensual, according to a statement from his lawyer,” The Washington Post has reported. In addition to the statement from his attorney, The Post also cites “other documents” it has obtained.

The sexual assault allegation involves a married woman who was attending a Republican conference with her husband and two children in 2017. She has accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her. She reportedly had no memory of how she got to his room, where, she alleged, he prevented her from leaving.

READ MORE: Trump’s Guilfoyle Nomination Surfaces Allegations Old and New

“Her next memory was when she was on the bed or couch and ‘Hegseth was over her,’ barechested, his dog tags ‘hovering over her face,’ the [police] report said,” according to The Independent. “After ejaculating on her stomach, Hegseth ‘threw a towel at her and asked her ‘are you ok?’ ‘ the police report said.”

Hegseth denies the assault allegations but did come to a financial settlement with her, which required her to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

“A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report made public,” The Guardian reported last month. “The 22-page police report was released in response to a public records request and offers the first detailed account of what the woman alleged to have transpired – one that is at odds with Hegseth’s version of events. The report cited police interviews with the alleged victim, a nurse who treated her, a hotel staffer, another woman at the event and Hegseth.”

The details appear to be in conflict with the narrative the Trump campaign and Trump’s and Hegseth’s allies have claimed.

“A spokesperson for the Trump transition said … that the ‘report corroborates what Mr Hegseth’s attorneys have said all along: the incident was fully investigated and no charges were filed because police found the allegations to be false,'” The Guardian reported, before disputing that claim.

“The report does not say that police found the allegations were false. Police recommended the case report be forwarded to the Monterey county district attorney’s office for review.”

The Guardian also explained that a nurse, and not the alleged victim, had contacted police.

READ MORE: ‘Pay-to-Play’: Trump Offers ‘Fully Expedited’ Approvals for $1 Billion Investments

“Investigators were first alerted to the alleged assault, the report said, by a nurse who called them after a patient requested a sexual assault exam. The patient told medical personnel she believed she was assaulted five days earlier but could not remember much about what had happened. She reported something may have been slipped into her drink before ending up in the hotel room where she said the assault occurred.”

USA Today reported last month that “Hegseth’s statement to police directly conflicts with a 2017 witness account − and with recent statements by Hegseth’s attorney, who said he was visibly intoxicated on the night in question and that his alleged victim was ‘the aggressor in the encounter.'”

But on Wednesday, Congressman McCormick told C-SPAN the allegations against Hegseth were “anonymous tips.”

Hegseth, McCormick said, has done “a really good job of showing up against those accusations, which are anonymous, which nobody at Fox will say anything.”

“They’re like, ‘I don’t know what he’s talking — I don’t know what they’re talking about when they they talk about these anonymous complaints.’ He doesn’t know what’s talking about. His wife doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“We’re all, they’re all kind of like, ‘just show me who it is, and and let’s address it, because, I don’t know who it is,'” McCormick said.

“Okay,” the C-SPAN host responded, “but he paid a settlement, so he does know who it is.”

“No,” McCormick insisted, “he didn’t know who it is, and and he saying to us, ‘it’s an empty, it’s an empty allegation of an anonymous tip.’ That’s that’s not the same thing. And and so that’s that’s why I heard the same thing as you, and I had my concerns. But that’s not what we were told in conference. We were told, ‘no, these are anonymous tips. We don’t know where they came from.'”

Watch the video below or at this link.

REP. RICH McCORMICK: I don’t know what they’re talking about when they talk about these anonymous complaints. Pete Hegseth doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

C-SPAN HOST: You’re talking about the accusations of sexual assault? He paid a settlement so he does know who it is pic.twitter.com/6nVxevxu4q

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 11, 2024

READ MORE: ‘Swarm of MAGA Attacks’ Making Hegseth Confirmation Seem More Likely: Report

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license