Contents:
- TIMELE: BILL CLTON'S EVOLUTN ON GAY RIGHTS
- GAY POLICS GO MASTREAM
- LBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS DURG PRINT CLTON'S SEND TERM: A WORKG PAPER PUBLISHED BY THE CIZENS' COMMISSN ON CIVIL RIGHTS
- PROCLAMATN 7203—GAY AND LBIAN PRI MONTH, 1999
TIMELE: BILL CLTON'S EVOLUTN ON GAY RIGHTS
“Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton, " by Jam Kirchick, is a 654-page tome that took years of rearch and an exhstive vtigatn to printial archiv, historil terviews and once-classified ernment rerds. “I realized that all the stori I was readg, and the personali and phenomena, whether was McCarthyism or the Reagans, FDR or JFK, that there were the gay stori lurkg the background, ” Kirchick stori lurked the background out of necsy: The st of g out as gay — or, more likely, beg outed agast one’s will — was enormo profsnally and socially.
“It was the specter of homosexualy that provoked the first and only suici by a member of Congrs his Capol Hill office, ed Lyndon Johnson to et that his historil lead would evaporate, and seized the paranoid md of Richard Nixon send only to the plots of his ever-expandg enemi list, ” Kirchick wr.
“To asss the full sle of the damage that the fear of homosexualy wrought on the Amerin polil landspe, one mt take to acunt not only the reers ed and the liv cut short, but somethg vaster and unquantifiable: the possibili thwarted, ” Kirchick wr. Although openly LGBTQ people have ma their way to the hight ranks of ernment today, was not long ago that spected homosexuals workg for the feral ernment were hunted down, publicly huiated and termated wh the full force of the ernment.
GAY POLICS GO MASTREAM
The prev year, Clton had formalized the Whe Hoe’s outreach to gays and lbians by namg Stt, a heterosexual Arkansas iend who had cultivated Wt Coast gay lears while nng Clton’s printial mpaign California, as the first-ever Whe Hoe official wh a full-time role tendg to LGBT ncerns. “Our support for the bill would be taken by many the gay muni as an exprsn by the Print of ep ced [sic] bias agast gay people, ” Stt and her puty, Richard Soris told printial adviser Harold Ick a May 10 memo, “and as vg to Republin spegoatg of gays. ” “I believe we have been extremely succsful rebuildg our relatnships to [sic] our iends the gay muni spe the fias of gays the ary, the disjoted handlg of the Colorado se and the Print’s stated personal opposn to gay marriage, ” Stt and Soris wrote.
Wag did not succeed slowg the Defense of Marriage Act’s momentum, yet the Whe Hoe’s public ambivalence implied that Clton was actually wrtlg wh the possibily of a veto, unnecsarily raisg expectatns among gay supporters that would eventually provoke an even greater sense of betrayal. “As I unrstand , what the bill do is state marriage is an stutn between a man and a woman that, among other thgs, is ed to brg children to the world, but the legal effect of the bill — as I unrstand , the only legal effect of the bill is to make clear that stat n ny regnn of gay marriag that occurred other stat, ” Clton said.
LBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS DURG PRINT CLTON'S SEND TERM: A WORKG PAPER PUBLISHED BY THE CIZENS' COMMISSN ON CIVIL RIGHTS
The Print said was his unrstandg that the only legal effect of the bill is to make clear that stat n ny regnn of gay marriag that occur other stat and if that’s all do, he’ll sign , ” Patricia Lewis, a spokwoman who handled the gay media, wrote to a lleague immediately after learng what Clton had said at his prs nference wh Helmut Kohl. From the moment Clton had announced three and a half months earlier that he would sign the bill if prented to him by Congrs, his Whe Hoe’s gay-and-lbian liaison operatn had agonized about how that moment would play out. Gay lobbyists had dread the moment that the Defense of Marriage Act would e for a Senate vote, but by the time passed by an 85-14 marg midafternoon of September 10, that was not even the gay-rights news of the day.
That same day, the Employment Non-Discrimatn Act, which had been assumed ad for the 104th Congrs, me a sgle, promised vote short of beg the first piece of gay civil-rights legislatn to pass a hoe of Congrs, and had done so a Republin-ntrolled Senate.
As the print and first lady took pictur wh the Brandon Valley High School Lynx and the Huron High School Tigers, those the prs area were by dg what the document they had jt been hand said about Clton’s view of gay rights. Even Congrsman Barney Frank, who as the untry’s most proment openly gay polician had supported Clton’s cisn to announce early that he would sign the bill, lled his sister, then workg as Clton’s puty mpaign manager, to pla.
PROCLAMATN 7203—GAY AND LBIAN PRI MONTH, 1999
Unr the new policy, gay, lbian and bisexual Amerins uld serve their untry, as long as they kept their sexual inty unr supporters of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” weled as a more liberal policy that would allow gay Amerins to serve their untry, gay rights activists plaed that forced the service members to secrecy, while dog ltle to bat the prejudice agast them. In 1981, the Department of Defense reaffirmed the ban, and durg the 1980s the ary branch discharged close to 17, 000 men and women unr the homosexual his 1992 printial mpaign, Bill Clton announced his tentn to end the ban on homosexuals the ary if elected. In practice, the policy did ltle to change the behavr of mandg officers toward service members they spected of beg gay, and by 2009, the ary had discharged more than 13, 000 gays, lbians and bisexuals sce DADT was troduced, acrdg to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.
In 2010, jt after Senate Republins blocked a repeal effort, Clton himself voiced regret over the policy, and said he had only settled on after beme clear both the Senate and the Hoe would favor an absolute ban on gays the Samad/AFP/Getty ImagPrint Barack Obama signg the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010 to law at the Department of the Interr Washgton, DC, on December 22, Repeal of 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell'Barack Obama mpaigned for print 2008 wh a promise to immediately overturn DADT, but the discharg ntued durg his first year the Whe Hoe.
In 2015, the Pentagon add sexual orientatn to the Milary Equal Opportuny policy for the first time, meang gay servicemen and servicewomen would be protected om June 2016 the ary end s ban on transgenr service members, a group that acrdg to some timat may have numbered some 15, 500 at that time. Bill Clton, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act to law 1996, is now urgg the Supreme Court to strike an op-ed the Washgton Post on Friday, the former print said when he greenlighted DOMA—which f marriage as between a man and a woman-- was a “very different time, ” notg that no stat regnized gay marriage.