SB166 removes “gender-specific” language from Article 133 of the Wisconsin Code of Military Justice, which prohibits “conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman.”
The Senate passed SB166 on September 14, 2023, by unanimous consent. We have assigned minuses to the ayes because this bill replicates a “gender-neutral” modification to the Uniform Code of Military Justice made by a Democrat-led Congress in 2021, following President Joe Biden’s executive order on “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce.” Neither Congress nor the Legislature have any business advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), especially in the armed forces. The Wisconsin National Guard’s mission is to provide well-trained and equipped soldiers and airmen ready to fight and protect the lives, liberty, and property of their fellow citizens. Disgraceful “woke” efforts to socially engineer an effeminate, egalitarian, or insubordinate culture within its ranks are subversive of all order, discipline, and the very existence of the military itself. Wisconsin lawmakers should, in a manner more worthy of self-government, be expected to “bear true faith and allegiance” to the same constitutional principles that National Guard members also must take an oath to “support and defend.”