LEWISTON MORNING
TRIBUNE
JUN. 19 1994
Clinton's gay rights policies
are under attack from within
By Jill Lawrence
Of the Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The " don't ask, don't tell"
bargain President Clinton struck last year under
pressure from Congress and the military has come
to this: His principles on gay rights issues are
under continuing attack by his own administration.
The arguments a federal judge made recently in
ordering the reinstatement of a gay military nurse
sounded eerily like the eloquent anti-discrimina-
tion declarations of candidate Clinton.
But last week, Clinton's Justice Department ap-
pealed the judge's decision and asked that the
highly decorated nurse - Col. Margarethe Cam-
mermeyer - be permanently ousted from the National
Guard.
"It's got to be an embarrassment for the administration,"
says Doug Hattaway, spokesman for
the Human Rights Campaign Fund. "We can only
hope the courts in the end take care of it."
The gay community responded to Clinton's presidential
candidacy with outpourings of emotional
and financial support- nearly $6 million from
Hattaway's political action committee alone.
Gay Clinton supporters hardly expected to find
his administration arguing, as it did last week,
that restoring Cammermeyer to duty "is likely to
have adverse effects on the ability of the military
to maintain morale, efficiency and mission focus."
Equally chagrined are Clinton backers who
ended up with Jobs at the White House and Justice
Department. "There's been a lot of grinning and
bearing It," said one department official. "It
hasn't been easy."
Clinton had pledged during his campaign to end
the military's ban on gay service members. While
activists are distressed about the current state of
affairs, they say it's the only blemish on Clinton's
record.
In fact, within days of appealing the Cammer-
meyer decision, the Justice Department issued a
broad policy permitting homosexuals persecuted
in other countries for their sexual orientation to
seek asylum in the United States.
"Bill Clinton isn't prejudiced against gay peo-
ple. He's the most supportive president we've ever~
had," said Hattaway.
The current awkward course was set last sum-
mer when Clinton settled for a military policy
under which officers were not supposed to ask
anyone's sexual orientation or search out people
they thought might be gay. Gay troops were not
supposed to disclose their orientation.
ANALYSIS
But as judges have declared it unconstitutional
or discriminatory to dismiss gay personnel, the
Clinton administration has found it difficult to
draw a line between the old ban and the new com-
promise.
Officials concluded attacks on the old system
were bound to undermine the new. Thus people
who thought they would be fighting discrimination
instead are fighting its alleged victims in no less
than 10 cases dating from the days of the ban, plus
another four filed since it was modified.
Administration officials "understand they bas-
ically lost the issue," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-
Mass., one of two publicly gay members of Congress.
In his own view, "the way it's worked out
has been a total loss."
The rate of discharge has not changed under the
new policy and officials are still hunting for gays,
said Dixon Osburn of the Service Members Legal
Defense Network. Personal diaries and computer
files have been read, he said, and military officers
recently claimed a pair of 1970s style platform
shoes was evidence of homosexual conduct.
Cammermeyer, a 26-yearveteran who earned a
Bronze Star in Vietnam, revealed her lesbianism
two years ago under questioning during a security
clearance.
Frank said he tried and failed to discourage a
White House challenge to the order to reinstate
Cammermeyer and to clear her record. However,
he said he accepted the need to appeal part of the
order banning future action against Cammermeyer.
His reasoning: "She's made it very clear she
doesn't intend to hide." That's grounds for discharge
under current policy, and Frank contends
the Justice Department has no choice but to de-
fend current policy.
However, others in the gay community say they
see no reason the administration must defend a
flawed policy.
"There's no way that anyone can justify appeal-
ing these cases, either legally or morally," said
Los Angeles business consultant David Mixner, a
Clinton fund-raiser and college friend. "If the appeal
is upheld, It will have historical ramifications
for gays and lesbians who wish to serve their country.
It is a very serious game that they are playing."
This week Frank and others plan to introduce a
bill outlawing job discrimination against homosex-
uals. Clinton’s choice will be clear: sit out the
inevitable bitter battle or stick to the principles he
talked about when he ran for president.
Clinton's ratings
slump among gay
men and lesbians
Associated Press
NEW YORK - Seven in 10 lesbians and
gay men responding to a Newsweek poll ap-
prove of President Clinton's job perfor-
mance, down significantly from a
comparable poll in March 1993, the magazine
said.
The poll included 504 homosexuals randomly
chosen from a marketing company’s
extensive lists of Americans who associate
themselves with gay and lesbian interests.
Among this group:
• 62 percent don't think Clinton is taking
issues of concern to gays seriously enough.
• 84 percent disapprove of his handling of
the issue of gays in the military.
• 72 percent approve of his overall job performance,
down from 88 percent last year.
Pollsters familiar with how the poll was
done caution that it cannot reflect all U.S.
homosexuals because the majority of the
sample was made up of gays who are open
about their sexuality.
Of the women in the poll, 64 percent said
they are open with co-workers and 82 percent
with family members. The men are less likely
to be open: 55 percent with co-workers and
68 percent with family members.
