
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 31, 1993                   TAG: 9303310329
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

GAY BAN NUNN'S PLAN MISFIRES, TOO

ON MANY an issue, Bill Clinton's instinct and talent for compromise may serve him well. On the question of gays in the military, they won't. The question can't be compromised.

The president's interest in the idea of segregated military units for homosexuals was, fortunately, fleeting. That kind of "compromise" is patently absurd. But Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is pushing another kind of compromise that, while less absurd on its face, won't work either.

Under Nunn's plan, Clinton's order to the military to stop asking recruits their sexual orientation would be made permanent. Nothing else, however, would change: Homosexual orientation alone - not behavior, mind you; simply orientation - would remain grounds for discharge.

The Nunn approach has a superficial appeal. Plenty of gays have served, are serving and no doubt will serve in the military, whatever the official policy says. Just don't talk about it, and everything's OK.

Except everything wouldn't be OK. The issue would merely be shoved from recruiting officer to commanding officer. The latter could ask the same intrusive question, and for gay personnel, it would require the same Catch-22 answer: Lie or be banned. Indeed, the pre-Clinton policy of popping the question up front, before induction, would be more honest.

Does merit alone - that sum of courage, ability, skills and performance - count in the military? Or do extraneous criteria, like sexual orientation, also apply? It's one or the other; it can't be both.

by CNB