Defense bill becomes battleground for culture wars

From vaccine mandates to abortion, the annual defense spending bill has become a vehicle for both Republicans and Democrats in the House to try to hash out culture war issues.

The House Freedom Caucus, a group of hard-line conservatives, on Wednesday announced an official position urging GOP colleagues to oppose the bill, citing a number of hot-button cultural issues along with concern about military funding going to other countries.

“This bill does nothing to address the President’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates, which are forcing thousands of our best, bravest, and highly trained (on the Taxpayers’ dime, mind you) Service Members out of the military,” the House Freedom Caucus said in a statement.

“It also fails to end the radical Left’s contamination of our military with ‘woke’ ideology, the prioritization of ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ over combat readiness, or the wasteful allocation of funds on politically motivated ‘Green New Deal’ climate initiatives.”

On the Democratic side, lawmakers veered into the abortion debate by introducing an amendment to repeal current restrictions on using Pentagon funds to perform abortions. The House Rules committee did not allow the amendment to be debated.

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