Trump’s Army Secretary nominee: The left trying to ‘paint me as a hater’ for my Christian views
Responding to a campaign by pro-LGBTQ groups against his nomination as Secretary of the Army, Dr. Mark Green said the “liberal left has cut and spliced my words” to “paint me as a hater.”
Looking at the way LGBTQ activists and liberal websites such as the anti-Trump Huffington Post have twisted Dr. Green’s words and taken them out of context to demonize and discredit him, the Tennessee state legislator seems to have a good case.
“STOP Transphobic Mark Green from leading the Army,” reads one particularly harsh attack on the website of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “President Trump is truly scraping the bottom of the barrel in selecting such a hateful nominee … We’ve got to say no to this kind of hate.”
The homosexual-transgender lobby group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) even stooped to using a darkened and unflattering closeup photo of Green to ram home their hostile polemic against his alleged “vicious and dangerous ‘politics.’”
But those who know Dr. Green, who has used his vast medical experience to provide humanitarian care to poor and underserved populations, say he is far from a “hater.”
Green is a highly-decorated West Point graduate, a strongly pro-life conservative Christian, a pro-Second Amendment, Tea Party Republican and a former U.S. Army flight surgeon. In 2003, he conducted a six-hour, face-to-face interview with Saddam Hussein the night the Iraqi dictator was captured by an elite Army force, and later wrote a book about it, A Night with Saddam.
Noting Green’s accomplishments, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William G. "Jerry" Boykin, executive vice president at the Family Research Council, told LifeSiteNews, “What more could we want? … There’s not much left that Mark Green hasn’t done.”
Gen. Boykin, who spent 36 years in the Army, said the Left has become “so powerful, and so vicious, that it’s getting hard to find good people like Mark Green to run for office or engage in public policy because of the lies and hateful attacks they will have to endure.”
Is Green’s nomination in trouble?
If confirmed, Green would succeed Obama’s openly homosexual Secretary of the Army, Eric Fanning, a fact that has only further inflamed his LGBT opponents.
“1st openly gay Army Sec. shouldn't be followed by an anti-LGBTQ leader. Army deserves better,” tweeted HRC President Chad Griffin.
The intense, leftist campaign against Green could be on the verge of succeeding, with the Military Times reporting that Green might drop out from consideration. However, a spokesman for Green quickly denied that report, and Green is reportedly preparing to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee (no date has been set).
The Green controversy comes after President Trump’s first choice for Army Secretary, Vincent Viola, pulled out in February, citing potential business conflicts of interest.
Republican “moderate” Sen. John McCain added fuel to the liberal political fire, saying that some of Green’s past remarks “obviously are very concerning,” USA Today reported.
Today, the D.C. newspaper The Hill also reported that Green’s nomination is in trouble, with an HRC staffer saying he believes some Republican senators will vote against him.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, announced his opposition to Green yesterday, saying, ““While I deeply appreciate and applaud his record of service to this nation, I feel that Mr. Green’s intolerant, extreme and deeply disturbing views, and disparaging comments toward the LGBTQ community, Muslims, Latinos and other groups of Americans — all of whom play important roles in the Army and in our country — are dangerous to morale, cohesion and readiness of our Armed Services and the fabric of America.”
Green defends himself
In an April 25 posting on his Facebook page, Dr. Green wrote:
“The liberal left has cut and spliced my words about terrorism and ISIS blatantly falsifying what I've said. Let me be very clear,
1) The only people I have ever called evil are murderous terrorists trying to kill Americans.2) The only people I have ever suggested be crushed are the terrorist enemies of our nation.3) I have never and will never force my religion on anyone. If God gives Mankind a choice, which I believe, who am I to force my faith on anyone?4) I believe that every American has a right to defend their country regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and religion. It's the radical left that won't allow the latter.5) I have never considered myself a judge of anyone, but I have been a protector of everyone in this nation.”
Citing an April 24 essay on the “God and Country” website titled “Homosexual Activists Target Army Secretary Nominee Mark Green. Because He’s Christian,” Dr. Green wrote, “It would seem that this gentleman has figured out why certain people are cutting and splicing my words to paint me as a hater. It will not stand.”
Anatomy of an LGBTQ distortion
Leftist groups like Think Progress and leftist “news” sites like Huffington Post are opposing Green based on a range of his positions, including his strong support for the Second Amendment. But it was homosexual and transgender groups, led by HRC, that first aggressively opposed his appointment after learning that as a state senator in the Volunteer state, Green sponsored legislation similar to HB2 in North Carolina that would have effectively made it illegal for biological males to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms in public schools.
LGBT critics honed in on a blog radio interview Dr. Green did last year in which he said the following, as reported by Huffington Post. LifeSiteNews provides the full context so the reader can assess subsequent reports about what Dr. Green allegedly said:
“And as far as the religious argument goes, and this applies to the issue of Syrian refugees as well. There’s a big fuss about whether or not that we should sue the federal government over having to take refugees from Syria into the state of Tennessee, I believe we should sue the federal government in that case because Romans 13 is pretty doggone clear, this is the passage where it tells people to submit to the authorities – meaning, basically if you’re in the government, you should do what the government tells you to do. You know, don’t speed, all that kind of stuff. Obey the laws is basically what the passage says. But what it goes on to say is that because the government exists for two purposes.“The government exists to honor those people who live honorably, who do good things – to reward people who behave well and to crush evil. So that means as a state senator, my responsibility very clearly in Romans 13 is to create an environment where people who do right are rewarded and the people who do wrong are crushed. Evil is crushed.“So I’m going to protect women in their bathrooms, and I’m going to protect our state against potential infiltration from the Syrian ISIS people in the refugee program. And whoever wants to stand up and take me on [regarding] that, I’m ready to fight.”
The Huffington Post, which so strongly opposes Trump that in 2015 it officially announced it would not cover his candidacy as political news but rather as entertainment news, gave the following tendentious headline for their story, based on the above excerpt:
“Trump Pick For Army Secretary Says He Opposes Transgender Equality Because He Must ‘Crush Evil’”
From there, the National Center for Transgender Equality declared, “Green has called transgender people ‘diseased,’ ‘immoral,’ and ‘evil.’”
(At a tea party event in September, Dr. Green said, “If you poll the psychiatrists, they're going to tell you transgender is a disease,” The Tennessean reported. The American Association’s current "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM-5), known as the “bible of psychiatry,” classifies distress-causing “gender dysphoria” as a mental disorder.)
But it was the homosexual-transgender media pressure group GLAAD that took Dr. Green’s quotation the farthest from its original meaning, leading off its “Trump Accountability Project” hit page against the Army Secretary nominee with this description:
“Called the transgender community ‘evil’ that must be ‘crushed’ and compared LGBTQ Americans to ISIS.”
However, as Green noted, “The only people I have ever called evil are murderous terrorists trying to kill Americans.”
Conservatives defend Green as “honorable”
Green has many defenders. Raul Lopez, executive director of Latinos for Tennessee, assailed the “disingenuous attacks” against Sen. Green as “categorically false.”
“His appointment should be a proud moment for the Volunteer State that knows firsthand that Senator Green is a selfless patriot who loves our country and has put on the uniform to fight for our precious freedoms.” Lopez writes in an op-ed in today’s Tennessean. “But because Mark Green is a man of faith, critics are seizing on a handful of statements that are purposefully drawn out of context to paint him as intolerant of others.”
Dallas-based Christian talk show host Janet Mefferd told LifeSiteNews, “Progressives have vilified U.S. Army Secretary nominee Mark Green for everything from his commitment to religious liberty to his skepticism over the theory of evolution. This is the politics of personal destruction. Green is an honorable public servant who would serve the U.S. Army and our country well, and he is being unfairly targeted for his conservatism and Christian worldview.”
“As far as I'm concerned, the virulent objections to Green from homosexual activists and extreme liberals like Sens. Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren should only underscore why he needs to be confirmed,” said Mefferd, who has defended Green on air.
A group of Republican Congressmen active on defense issues finally came to Green’s defense.
“It is our firm belief that confirmation of Mark E. Green to serve as Secretary of the Army will only enhance America’s warfighting capability and build on the mutual trust that exists between soldiers and their leaders,” said a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, signed by Reps. Duncan Hunter (CA), Adam Kinzinger (IL), Trent Franks (AZ), Steve Russell (OK), among others, as reported by The Tennessean.
Gen. Boykin told LifeSiteNews that there is a desperate need for more members of Congress to speak out with “courage” to defend Dr. Green and other Christian public servants like him who are under political assault from the pro-LGBT Left.
