SB1675 removes gender-specific language from the Illinois Code of Military Justice, including “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.”

The House passed SB1675 on May 23, 2025, by a vote of 108 to 0. We have assigned minuses to the yeas because this bill replicates a “gender-neutral” modification to the Uniform Code of Military Justice made by a Democrat-led Congress in 2021, following President Joe Biden’s executive order on “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce.” The General Assembly has no business complying with “woke” diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies to socially engineer an effeminate, egalitarian, or insubordinate culture in the armed forces. These changes have resulted in not only homosexuals serving openly within the ranks, but women in combat and transgendered troops. It’s subversive of all order, discipline, and the very existence of the military itself. The Illinois National Guard’s mission is to provide well-trained and equipped soldiers and airmen ready to fight and protect the lives, liberty, and property of their fellow citizens. State legislators should, in a manner more worthy of self-government, be expected to “bear true faith and allegiance” to the same constitutional principles that National Guard members also take an oath to “support and defend.”