An anonymous group has attacked Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama's choice to lead the Pentagon, as anti-gay.

The group, which is going by the name Use Your Mandate, urges Senators to reject Hagel's nomination for Secretary of Defense, claiming he is “anti-woman, anti-choice, anti-Israel, anti-gay and pro-assault weapon” in an ad which ran during multiple Sunday morning news shows. (The video is embedded on this page. Visit our video library for more videos.)

According to The Huffington Post, the group “is made up mostly of Democrats and independents” and is not disclosing its membership because many of those involved are close to the Obama administration.

Citing Hagel's poor voting record on gay rights in the Senate and comments he made in 1998 toward James Hormel, the openly gay former U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg, gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans has led the charge against Hagel – a Republican – running expensive full-page ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post opposing his nomination.

Hagel recently apologized for calling Hormel a bad fit for the post of ambassador because he's “openly, aggressively gay.” And in a letter to California Senator Barbara Boxer, he endorsed repeal of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” and committed to extending equal benefits to the families of LGBT troops.

“Never in his life, in any public capacity, has he done anything in the positive department for gay rights,” a source close to the group told The Huffington Post. “Everything that the group is doing is aimed at starting this discussion, and if he doesn't meet the criteria and can't answer some very basic questions with some familiarity and make some commitments that are really no different than the president's really, then what's the point? … What did we fight this election for? Is this the best that we can do?”

OutServe-SLDN, a group which represents LGBT troops, criticized the ad in a statement given to BuzzFeed.

“At OutServe-SLDN, we are disappointed to see this kind of dirty politics make an appearance in the debate about who our next Secretary of Defense should be,” said Allyson Robinson, the group's executive director. “Senator Hagel has appropriately apologized and has taken steps to build trust with our LGBT military families – specifically, by committing to extend the benefits that may be made available to them even while the so-called Defense of Marriage Act is still on the books. Much remains to be done – and we still look to Senator Hagel to speak out on other issues important to LGBT service members and their families – but anonymous, unaccountable attacks do nothing to move the ball forward for our brave LGBT men and women in uniform.”