The Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg published a post on the FRC’s blog today urging the Senate to grill Kristin Goodwin about any “homosexual conduct” she may have engaged in prior to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in 2011.

As we noted last week, anti-LGBTQ activists are up in arms over Goodwin’s nomination to serve as a commandant of cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy because she is a lesbian. In his post, Sprigg urged Senate Republicans to make Goodwin’s sexual history a focus of questions during her confirmation hearing.

Sprigg states that, contrary to popular belief, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell regulations enacted by the Department of Defense under President Bill Clinton in 1994 differed from the law that was enacted by Congress at the time regarding the issue of homosexuality in the military.

DOD regulations declared that “sexual orientation is considered a personal and private matter, and homosexual orientation is not a bar to service entry or continued service unless manifested by homosexual conduct,” and Sprigg notes that, under the law, engaging in “homosexual conduct” was grounds for dismissal:

The law also declared flatly that “A member of the armed forces shall be separated from the armed forces” [emphasis added] if it was found: (1) That the member has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts . . . (2) That the member has stated that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual, or words to that effect . . . (3) That the member has married or attempted to marry a person known to be of the same biological sex. … The actual law enacted by Congress, however, made clear that all three elements of a “homosexual orientation”—attractions, conduct, and self-identification—remained problematic for the military. The statement, “The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity [emphasis added] or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk,” addresses sexual attractions. And both the conduct (“the member has engaged in . . . a homosexual act”) and the self-identification (“the member has stated that he or she is a homosexual”) remained grounds for separation from military service. This was the state of the law until September 2011.

Goodwin graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1993 and Sprigg argues that if she engaged in any “homosexual conduct” prior to 2011, then she violated the law and is incapable of upholding the Air Force Honor Code.

As such, he insists that the Senate question Goodwin on this matter during its hearings: