Anti-gay Sen. Tommy Tuberville finally ends blockade of “woke” military promotions

Anti-gay Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is almost entirely ending his one-man blockade of over 400 military promotions. His blockade, which lasted 10 months, protested so-called “woke” military policies that promoted LGBTQ+ inclusion and abortion access. Those policies remain in place.

“We didn’t get the win that we wanted,” Tuberville told reporters on Tuesday. “We’ve still got the bad policy.”

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Tuberville said that he’d allow the Senate to approve the promotions of any military service members with a three-star general rank or below. His blockade had left the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps without confirmed leaders for the first time in 164 years, garnering criticism from Republicans, Democrats, and military leaders alike.

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He’ll continue to block the promotions of 11 four-star generals, though it’s unclear to what end. His blockade primarily sought to force the military into repealing its policy of funding out-of-state abortion costs for service members serving in states with restrictive anti-abortion policies. The military highlighted this policy after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

However, Tuberville also used his blockade to highlight “wokeness” “infiltrating” the U.S. military, making it “the weakest military … in my lifetime,” he said. Specifically, Tuberville complained about a nonbinary officer aboard a Navy aircraft carrier reading a poem about a gay soldier. U.S. Naval poetry readings date back to before 1926.

Eventually, Tuberville’s Republican colleagues grew tired of his antics.

“Why are we punishing American heroes who have nothing to do with the dispute?” asked Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), The Guardian reported. “Remember we are against the Biden abortion travel policy, but why are we punishing people who have nothing to do with the dispute and if they get confirmed can’t fix it? No one has had an answer for that question because there is no answer.”

Pressure increased on Tuberville after Senate Democrats recently introduced a proposal to make a one-time-only rule exception allowing the Senate to approve the promotions. The proposal reportedly had enough Republican support to pass. Had it received a floor vote, it would’ve shown (on the record) just how many Republican senators opposed Tuberville’s actions.

At the end of November, Tuberville signaled that he still wanted to block the promotions of any “woke” service members, though he didn’t elaborate on how he would asses any individual’s wokeness or how it might lead to any changes in military policy.

“We need to make sure that people that are our generals and admirals should be vetted to some degree,” he said, “but also understand that we need to get these people promoted, and it’s been a long time for some of them.”

Despite the end of this blockade, many of Tuberville’s House counterparts have increasingly complained about wokeness in the military, including attempts to address white supremacists and other anti-government extremists in its ranks.