I haven’t heard anything about opposition to Hagel, except for the right wing attempt to paint him as an anti-semite, so I found the linked story an interesting read.

Frank added, “And to those of us who admire and respect Mr. Hormel, Sen. Hagel’s description of him as aggressive can only mean that the Senator strongly objected to Hormel’s reasoned, civil advocacy for LGBT people. I cannot think of any other minority group in the U.S. today where such a negative statement and action made in 1998 would not be an obstacle to a major Presidential appointment.”

The question that comes up is how important is LGBTQ support within the Department of Defense? Very important when you consider how critical ending DADT was, and also how smoothly the repeal of it went because of the support at many levels of the administration. But Hagel apologized for the 1998 remarks. Is that enough?

But Hagel also has an anti-gay record while serving in Congress. From 2001 to 2006, Hagel consistently scored a “0? on the Human Rights Campaign’s scorecards between 2001 and 2006. Hagel voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004, but didn’t cast a vote on the measure in 2006.

The US has taken a bold position, opposing LGBT discrimination across the globe, spearheaded mostly by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. How are those efforts impacted is a Secretary of Defense is seen as anti-gay?

via Barney Frank comes out in opposition to Hagel nomination – LGBTQ Nation.