Gay Rights

Gays in the Military

One of the first gay rights issues to play a major role in national electoral politics was gays in the military. In 1981, the Department of Defense issued a directive that made homosexuality grounds for discharge from the military. Although Bill Clinton frequently promised to end this ban on gays in the military during the 1992 campaign, the issue did not generate a great deal of controversy until after Clinton took office. Fearing that Clinton would follow through on his campaign promise to allow homosexuals to serve in the military, a number of prominent elites came out in opposition to ending the ban.

Most notably, Democratic Senator Sam Nunn organized congressional hearings designed to prevent Clinton's policy from going into effect, and loint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Colin Powell publicly announced his opposition to allowing homosexuals to serve. In [Page 272]response to this opposition, Clinton backed off of his campaign promise to end the ban and adopted a “don't ask, don't tell” policy towards homosexuals in the military.

Under this policy, the military would no longer ask applicants about their sexual orientation or conduct investigations to determine if a serviceperson was homosexual, but homosexual servicepersons would not be allowed to engage in homosexual acts or announce their homosexuality in a public forum. While the conventional wisdom is that the controversy surrounding gays in the military hurt Clinton's popularity in the early months of his presidency, there is evidence that the public's support for allowing gays in the military grew following the debate.

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