ASHCROFT AND GAYS

Some readers have asked me why, in defending President Bush’s right to pick John Ashcroft for attorney-general, I still persisted in describing him as unsavory and someone I would never personally have chosen. The answer is in today’s Washington Post. Paul Offner, a health-care expert, has testified that in an interview for a job under Ashcroft, he was directly asked by Ashcroft if he was gay or not; and then asked if he had ever taken an illegal substance. Offner, who is straight, was shocked by the questions as well he might be, and was sure that if he had answered yes to being gay, it would have barred him from the job. I believe Offner. He’s not an ideologue; or a culture warrior; and plenty of people have confirmed his claim. Besides, there is no doubt in my mind that, given his record, Ashcroft would never knowingly hire an openly gay person and that he nixed James Hormel for that reason and that reason alone. There is also no doubt in my mind at this point that Ashcroft lied under oath about these matters before the Judiciary Committee when he said that “sexual orientation has never been something I have used in hiring in any of the jobs, in any of the offices I’ve held,” and when he said that he voted against Hormel for other (unspecified) reasons. Where does that leave us? It leaves us with the knowledge that our next attorney-general is a discriminator who has lied under oath. The consolation is that he has pledged not to allow such bigotry to infect his judgment as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. And if he is true to his word, then that will surely be a gain. But since he has lied under oath already, how do we believe this particular assurance or any other? After eight years of Clinton, do we really want a perjurer running the Justice Department? This revelation troubles me – and not because it reveals an ideology with which I disagree, and not simply because, as a gay man, I am obviously troubled by someone who would bar me from a job purely for my sexual orientation. It troubles me because it gets to the heart of a man’s character. This is a man who voted to impeach a president for lying under oath. How does he expect the rest of us to support his nomination if he has done the same thing himself?