Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 29, 1993 TAG: 9301290427
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A FIGHT DEFERRED BUT NOT ABANDONED
WEEK ONE, and President Clinton already is embroiled in Controversy Two, and this one's a humdinger.His resolve to end the ban on gays serving in the military has put him at the center of a maelstrom of resistance, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the Congress to the flood of angry callers phoning the White House.
But legal discrimination by the government against a class of people is indefensible. Clinton should stay the course.
Which is not to say that the Joint Chiefs and others fiercely opposed to ending the ban should be ignored. They are right to worry that such action may cause difficulties here and there, perhaps even a temporary drop in morale. And their practical concerns about maintaining order while implementing the change should be taken seriously.
The new administration has agreed to delay for six months an executive order to lift the ban so Congress can hold hearings and the Pentagon can figure out how to carry out the change in military culture. This is wise.
Concerns expressed about Clinton's policy, especially within the military, must be responsibly answered, not dismissed out of hand. The president certainly doesn't want, by issuing an immediate executive order, to prompt legislative restoration of the ban.
Prejudices, however, should not be allowed to prevail. The various arguments against lifting the ban on gays - that it would wreck morale and discipline, hurt recruiting and cause devoutly religious people to resign - boil down to just one, really. Some people in the military fear, or don't like, homosexuals, and don't want to be around them. That's their right, isn't it?
Well, no.
Military personnel with religious beliefs against homosexuality have a right to their beliefs, just as those who find homosexuality repugnant have a right to their opinion. But they do not have a right to impose their beliefs on others in matters as private as this.
Members of the military do have a right not to be sexually harassed or preyed upon - by persons of either sex or any persuasion. But they do not have a right to let their fears damage the innocent. Sexual overtures have everything to do with a person's conduct, little to do with a person's sexual identity. The point is to concentrate on behavior rather than status.
Of course discipline must be maintained; that's what the military is about. There must be a strict code of conduct for gays if they are to be allowed openly in the military. Clinton said as much when he made his campaign promise to lift the ban.
Despite that assurance, opponents fear that if gays and lesbians are permitted out of the closet, harm will follow because of the singular nature of military life - the lack of privacy in peacetime living quarters and, worse, the forced intimacy of wartime bivouacs. But how different will their lives be, really?
Presumably, these people understand there are gays in the military now. They won't be sharing their showers with any more gay men or lesbians after the ban is lifted than they are right now. The difference is they might know who is what. If a strict code of conduct is enforced - and it's unimaginable that it would not be - that should be the only difference.
What, then, of fears about predatory sexual behavior in combat conditions? That, of course, cannot be tolerated. But to assume every gay person is a sexual predator is as prejudiced as it would be to assume that every heterosexual male in the military enjoys sexually abusing women.
In tackling this injustice now, Clinton is making good on a campaign promise. But even supporters are questioning his timing. After all, he didn't promise to make lifting the ban his first order of business, and there are those small matters of fixing the economy and curing the health-care system to worry about. It isn't wise, they say, to spend political capital on this, when battles are to be fought for issues more important to far more Americans.
There's merit in that concern. But Clinton's decision seems to be a matter of conscience as much as politics. If he believes firmly in the need for this change, there were arguments for pushing it early. (The idea is not going to be less controversial later, and a long delay may allow more time for the opposition to organize and dig in.)
In any case, with Clinton embarked on this course which is true to the principles underlying America's freedoms and rights, it would be disastrous to back down. Lifting the ban on gays has become a test of the president's mettle, and of the nation's tolerance.