‘Prohibited Extremist Activity’

The following is an exchange of emails initiated by “Employee,” who worked on a military base for a “Company” that has a contract with the U.S. military, after the Department of Defense released its Instruction, DoDI 1325.06, Handling Protest, Extremist, and Criminal Gang Activities Among Members of the Armed Forces, in December 2021. Except to remove names and other identifying information, the emails are unedited — even to the point of retaining typographical errors. The reader should understand that each reply in the email chain had the preceding missive below it, starting with an article (not reproduced here) announcing the release of the DoD Instruction. The government office at which “Employee” worked is organized into divisions, each of which is made up of branches.

Report of Possible Prohibited Extremist Activity

From: Employee
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2021
To: Government Security; Company Security
Cc: Government Supervisor; Company Supervisor

Folks,

Good afternoon. I hope you are well.

With the release of the DODi 1325.06 (link provided below), I feel a need to report what may be prohibited extremist activity that I am engaged in. Enclosure 3, paragraph 8.c.(1)(f) (on page 10) defines “Extremist Activities” to include “Advocating widespread unlawful discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, or sexual orientation.” “Active participation,” which is prohibited by the direction of paragraph 8.c., is defined in 8.c.(2)(d),(e), and (f) to include:

•  Recruiting or training others to engage in extremist activities.
•  Fundraising for, or making personal contributions through donations of any kind (including but not limited to the solicitation, collection, or payment of fees or dues) to, a group or organization that engages in extremist activities, with the intent to support those activities.
•  Creating, organizing, or taking a leadership role in a group or organization that engages in or advocates for extremist activities, with knowledge of those activities.

If I may speak plainly, “unlawful discrimination based on…gender identity or sexual orientation” has recently been taken to include following traditional Christian teachings (and the present-day teachings of the Catholic Church) on matters of gender theory and marriage. Pope Francis, who is the head of the Catholic Church, has denounced gender theory in the strongest possible terms, calling it “demonic in origin.” There is a Catholic men’s group, the Knights of Columbus, which actively promotes the causes of restricting marriage to be between a man and a woman and of insisting that “male” means “of the type that begets young” and that “female” means “of the type that bears young.”