You’re not letting this one go, are you? A reader writes:
In 2008 Barack Obama ran as a candidate opposed to gay marriage. I don’t think there’s any doubt that he chose to do this in the teeth of his personal beliefs and the knowledge that it would be hurtful to the gay community. He chose to do so because he believed to do otherwise would lose him votes and possibly the election. The president has changed his official stance on the issue, and his policies and rhetoric today certainly reflect that change. But I don’t think he’s issued any sort of public apology for his 2008 stance.
Now, Clinton’s past sins in this area dwarf Obama’s, but Clinton was also operating in a political climate much more hostile to gay rights. Are you convinced that, under similar circumstances, Obama would not have behaved the same? I’m not.
Well, that’s an impossible hypothetical, but if forced to give an answer, I’d say I am. Yes, they’re both pragmatists; but there is a limit and a method to Obama’s pragmatism, and a patience in achieving his ends. There is, in contrast, no limit I have been able to find to the Clintons’ pragmatism or careerism. They were also amateurs, who didn’t think through how to achieve their ends, announced aims without beginning to prep for how to get there, and ended up being completely outflanked by the rabid right. Another reader:
From AFP: “Ending the US travel ban had been an uphill struggle for rights groups, who saw former president Bill Clinton’s attempts to repeal the restrictions shot down by conservatives.” So you saying that Clinton “signed the HIV travel ban” by supporting (along with Barney Frank) a generous NIH funding bill with historically high HIV/AIDS funding, which (despite Clinton’s/Frank’s lobbying) re-authorized the ban, would be like saying “Obama signed the green-card ban on gay immigrants” by signing a non-inclusive immigration reform bill (which he’s indicated he’d do if there were no other way to pass immigration reform).
There’s a huge difference between not including gay couples in immigration reform because a Supreme Court ruling would soon likely make it it moot; and signing into law a brutal piece of stigmatization and persecution for countless people with HIV. Jesse Helms said he regretted it. Clinton has never owned up to his role in signing it. Above, in an interview two years ago, he is still blaming others. You will not find a single instance of him blaming himself for bungling these issues in 1993 and then running from them ever since. Again: a simple sorry would suffice. It remains beyond him. Another reader:
Sorry Andrew, but your criticism of Bill Clinton’s record on gay rights jumped the shark when you listed “don’t ask, don’t tell” as one of the ways in which he “did so much damage to gay lives.”
While DADT was seriously flawed insofar as it required that gays in military remain closeted, it prohibited – for the first time – discrimination and harassment against closeted homosexual and bisexual service members and applicants. This distinction seems ludicrous now, but it was a huge step forward at the time. Clinton, moreover, actually wanted to sign an executive order that would have allowed gays to serve openly, but he was forced to fall back on DADT as a compromise position after being met with staunch opposition from prominent congressional Republicans and Democrats who threatened to write the exclusion of gays into law.
In fact, other than DOMA, Clinton’s record on gay rights is extremely impressive for the 1990s. He was the first president to appoint openly gay men and women, he issued executive orders lifting the ban on security clearances for LGBT federal employees and outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal civilian workforce, and he also pushed for both hate crimes laws and for the private sector Employment Non-Discrimination Act. All this at a time when supporting gay rights was pretty unpopular.
None of this, of course, excuses Clinton from later selling out gays for his own political gain, but you overplayed your hand.
He sold us out at the very beginning. He had no plan to implement the end of the gay ban; it was just another promise to fundraisers he never thought through. Then he dropped it almost immediately and left all those who had come out in the lurch. Then under Clinton as commander-in-chief, the rate of discharges on grounds of homosexuality doubled compared with this predecessor. He did nothing to stop this, even as George Stephanopoulos reassured me and others that gay servicemembers were going to be safer under the new law. They were, in fact, sitting ducks – and Clinton learned one lesson: take the money from the gays but fire more of them than any private employer. Note above that he even blames Colin Powell before taking responsibility himself. But Clinton never took responsibility for anything but his successes. Another reader:
The issue about Clinton and DOMA taps into a bigger question I have about how to view the millions of conversions on this issue over the last two decades, and the millions more who have not yet changed their minds. Are they all recovering bigots?
I did not support same-sex marriage when DOMA passed. Few Americans did; in 1988, only 11 percent supported gay marriage or had much idea what it would actually mean. I opposed DOMA, but mainly because it singled out gays and lesbians – not because I had a substantial disagreement with the policy of allowing only heterosexual marriage. Though I believe now that it was an awful law, DOMA seemed a logical step for those who sincerely opposed same-sex marriage.
There was an interesting moment on this week’s “Meet the Press” (a rarity, I know), when Ralph Reed and Jim DeMint accused Rachel Maddow of labeling Bill Clinton and all those who once supported DOMA as bigots. Maddow pointed out that Reed and DeMint were the only ones using the word “bigot”, but they had a point. As our society’s views continue their tectonic shift on this issue, how do you accommodate people whose deeply held beliefs are changing?
Was I a bigot in 1996? Or did I not yet recognize the discriminatory effects of my beliefs? I don’t really have an answer to that yet – and I would suggest that the answer is just as fuzzy for Clinton and other politicians who supported gay rights in principle but also supported DOMA.
I try to avoid the word “bigot” as much as possible for those reasons. I don’t think Clinton was a bigot just because he made a big show of returning to Arkansas in election year to personally preside over the execution of a mentally retarded African-American man, Ricky Ray Rector. I just think he was a disgusting opportunist, and if it ever was a choice between his career and minorities, his career always came first. It still does, and I wouldn’t be bothering with his Baldwin-like inability to own his own anti-gay record, if he weren’t obviously trying to win the White House back again, by-passing the 22nd Amendment via his wife.
The Dish 