OutRight

We’re Watching
Here’s what to keep an eye on in the administration of George W.
by Dale Carpenter

George W. Bush has made a career of surpassing expectations. When it comes to gay issues, for many activists the expectations of him are lower than a rattlesnake’s belly. Will Bush pleasantly surprise us? Here are three early things to look for.

Executive orders. The Clinton administration leaves behind some important executive orders related to gay rights. In a feel-your-pain presidency memorable more for a deadly combination of good motives and spinelessness than for "watershed and tangible civil rights breakthroughs" (as the Human Rights Campaign’s Elizabeth Birch aptly put it), these were rare accomplishments.

One executive order forbids discrimination against gays in federal civil employment. Another forbids using sexual orientation as a basis for denying security clearances. Either could be rescinded at will by Bush.

Spokesmen for Bush have said he will be reviewing all of Clinton’s executive orders, deciding which to keep and which to discard. That is a perfectly appropriate thing for any new president to do.

But there is no call for Bush to rescind these particular executive orders. Sexual orientation bears no relationship to fitness for federal employment or to responsibility for access to classified information. Bush wouldn’t even have the standard Republican reason for opposing nondiscrimination laws–that government should stay out of private affairs. The orders deal, after all, with government employment.

In political terms, letting the orders stand would be much less costly to Bush (in terms of support from social conservatives) than it would have been to issue them in the first instance. Retaining them would be a good indication he really means something when he says he wants to be a "uniter, not a divider." It would also consolidate one of the few real gains made during the Clinton years.

Administration appointments. So far, Bush’s appointments are a mixed lot, but not as bad as they’ve been portrayed. He’s chosen two very good gay-friendly governors, Christine Whitman (R-NJ) and Tommy Thompson (R-WI), for his cabinet. Thompson, for example, tried unsuccessfully to strip the GOP platform of its antigay language this past summer. Bush also named the pro-gay Mary Matalin to be a senior advisor.

Then there’s John Ashcroft, Bush’s choice for Attorney General. National gay groups immediately lambasted the nomination, citing Ashcroft’s opposition to their entire legislative agenda, his resistance to Clinton’s choice of the openly gay James Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg, and his past retrograde comments about changing one’s homosexuality.

On the other hand, Ashcroft testified before Congress that he would maintain the Justice Department’s nondiscrimination policy. "Even if the executive order [preventing antigay discrimination in federal employment] is repealed," he said, "I would still not consider sexual orientation in hiring at the Department of Justice because I don’t believe it relevant to the responsibilities." He then suggested he would continue to permit the Justice Department’s gay employees’ group to use government facilities for meetings and the like. Even if these statements represent a "confirmation conversion," they are strikingly tolerant for a man reviled as an ogre of the far right.

Will Bush appoint an openly gay person to his administration? There’s every reason to believe, at this point, he will become the first Republican president to do so. He has repeatedly affirmed that sexual orientation would not be a factor in his hiring.

The one time Bush suggested he might not hire an openly gay person, on a radio station during the South Carolina primary, the reason he gave for his reluctance was instructive. An openly gay person, he said at the time, "probably wouldn’t share my philosophy." To me, that has always seemed more like accurate assessment than prejudice.

It’s by now clear there are many qualified, openly gay people who share Bush’s commitment to lower taxes, less federal regulation, education reform, and so on. This is so clear, in fact, that openly gay people held positions in Bush’s campaign and were appointed to his transition team, a first for a Republican president-elect. Watch for more such firsts.

The military. During Bill Clinton’s eight years in office, military discharges of openly gay personnel more than doubled, rising to more than 1,000 per year in 1998 for the first time in 10 years. The reason for this alarming rise isn’t that the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy is worse than what it replaced (an outright ban on gays). In fact, the old and new military policies are almost identical in substance.

The major difference is that Clinton’s commanders aggressively sought out gay service members for harassment and termination. That is, the implementation of the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy exacerbated its core injustice. Clinton, as commander-in-chief, did nothing to curb the military’s bloodlust for gays.

Bush has said he will keep this cruel policy, so there’s little chance of undoing it for now. The real question will be whether Bush’s military will continue the intrusive investigations of the Clinton era or ease up on gay people who want to serve. Every president must enforce the law. But as we have learned the hard way, there’s enforcement and then there’s ENFORCEMENT.

Let’s monitor an easy gauge of improvement. Will military discharges rise even more under Bush? Or will they perhaps go back to lower levels not seen since the halcyon days of Bush’s father, when such discharges averaged a mere 800 wrecked lives per year?