President Barack Obama promised our veterans: "If Congress sends me a defense bill loaded with ... waste, I will veto it."

Seven-hundred-eighty-seven earmarks later, the Defense Authorization bill is to be voted on soon.

On top of the "pork," liberal legislators have deceptively and disingenuously attached the politically correct "hate crimes" legislation to the final defense bill. This action forces Congress to choose between giving preferential treatment to homosexuals or making our military go without.

States already have laws against actual discrimination. Expanding "perceived hate" crimes to the federal level puts America in lock step with the stated agenda of homosexual activists. Cowardly doing so in the Defense Authorization bill is bad public policy and precedent.