PAGES ▼ Q-Notes ▼ April 28, 2001
Military analysts see great strides in gay Pentagon appointee
SANTA BARBARA, CA—Military analysts
and civil rights advocates insist that the hiring
of an openly gay consultant to aid Defense Sec
retary Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon does
not pose a threat to military readiness.
Their remarks are in response to criticism
of the Bush Administrations decision to hire
Stephen E. Herbits, a civil rights activist, pio
neer in gay and lesbian marketing, and a former
assistant to both Vice President Cheney and
Secretary Rumsfeld.
In communications with researchers at the
Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in
the Military, a research center at the University
of California-Santa Barbara that studies the
experiences of foreign militaries, Herbits con
firmed that he will be screening civilian appli
cants for top Pentagon positions as a consult
ant in the role of “special assistant” to Secretary
Rumsfeld.
Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture
and Family Institute, told the Washington
Times, “An administration that has pledged
to uphold the moral order has no business
advancing the homosexual agenda through
appointments. People are policy.”
He said leaders of the administration “are
trying to become the bisexual administration.
They are trying to have it both ways.”
The Rev. Lou Sheldon, chairman of the
Traditional Values Coalition, called Herbits’
hiring a “slap in the face to our servicemen
and to Congress,” saying the appointment
“sends a message to Congress that the De
fense Department openly supports homo
sexuals in the military... despite the intent of
Congress and senior military officials to pro
tect the armed forces from homosexual ac
tivism.”
Robert Maginnis, Vice President of the
Family Research Council, called the appoint
ment “inappropriate,” wortying that Herbits
might reject applicants who find “homosexu
ality incompatible with military service.”
But Charles Moskos, the Northvvestern
University military sociologist who is consid-
eted the architect of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
(DADT) policy, told UC-Santa Barbara re
searchers that he welcomed Herbits’ appoint
ment as “a very enlightened step,” calling it a
“good sign that this administration is showing
itself not intolerant on sexual minorities.” The
gay ban, he explained, only applies to uni
formed personnel, “so to get upset over [Herbits’
appointment] seems beyond the bounds.”
David Segal, a military sociologist at the
University of Maryland, who studies foreign
militaries, said that both civilians and uni
formed personnel can serve in the military with
out a problem. “There have been a number of
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gay civilians in the Pentagon who were out and
it doesn’t seem to have been an issue,” he said.
He went further, explaining that sexual orien
tation need not be an issue among combat
troops either. According to his research, “the
experience of other countries suggests there is
no reason for concern.” Segal suggested that
opposition to Herbits’ appointment might be
motivated by politics rather than military con
siderations. “I presume that the people on the
hill who are concerned with Rumsfeld having
a gay advisor are the same ones as those who
opposed Bush having an openly gay AIDS ad
visor. I suspect the real issue here is that they
feel the president is abandoning them.”
David Smith, a spokesperson for the Hu
man Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay
rights lobbying organization, told UC Santa
Barbara researchers that Herbits’ position has
nothing to do with DADT. “He’s a qualified
individual who is being tapped by the Defense
Secretary,” he said, adding that criticism of the
position is “further evidence that conservative
activist groups just don’t like the fact that gay
people have jobs.”
David Elliot, communications director for
the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said
that critics are “taking the tack that any gay or
lesbian appointee is unacceptable simply be
cause they are gay or lesbian.”
mim
Academic experts say that opposition to gays
serving in the military is at odds with public
opinion as well as lessons of foreign countries
that have lifted their bans on gay troops.
According to Aaron Belkin, Director of the
Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the
Military, “both our research of foreign militar
ies, and scores of academic studies of cohesion
and performance in domestic institutions, sug
gest that the known presence of sexual minori
ties does not impair fighting effectiveness.”
According to the latest Gallup poll, 70 per
cent of the public says that gays should be al
lowed to serve in the military. The US and Tur
key are alone among the original members of
NATO in continuing to ban openly gay soldiers
from service.
The comments of conservative activists also
seem contraty to the growing number of aca
demic experts who previously claimed that lift
ing the gay ban would undermine the military,
but who now say that lifting the ban would
not harm military performance. Laura Miller,
an assistant professor of sociology at UCLA,
had expressed concern that there might be sig
nificant disruptions if the ban were lifted. But
after participating in a recent conference on the
experiences of foreign militaries that ended their
bans, she says, “I was persuaded that even for
those who would come out in an unsupportive
environment, there probably wouldn’t be quite
the level of open hostility I had thought.”
Even Moskos, who continues to support
DADT, has recently distanced himself from its
central justification, the alleged threat of gays
and lesbians to unit cohesion, criticizing the
effects of his own policy as “insidious.” ▼
Fund launches
online chats
by Sloan Wiesen
Special to Q-Notes
he Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, in
partnership with Gay.com, is launching peri
odic online chats with prominent openly gay
and lesbian elected officials and candidates. The
first such chat is set for Tuesday, May 1, from
7:00-7:45 pm and will feature Atlanta City
Council member Cathy Woolard, who is cur-
rently in a landmatk
race to become City
Council president.
“We are very ex
cited about bringing
members of our com
munity ‘up close and
personal’ with the ex
emplary openly gay
and lesbian candidates
\hey can help elect,”
said Victory Fund Ex-
CBthy WoolBrd ecutive Director Brian
K. Bond. “From the smallest towns to the big
gest cities, gay and lesbian people across
America will be able to join these informative
question-and-answer sessions with our
community’s most exciting candidates and of
fice holders. Participants will be able to learn
about the enormous difference civic leaders
like Cathy Woolard are making — and they
will also be able to learn what they can do to
help.”
By prevailing this fall, Woolard, a past and
current Fund endorsee, would become the first
openly lesbian city council president of a ma
jor US city — and fill Atlanta’s number two
leadership post. She became Georgia’s first
openly gay or lesbian elected official in 1997,
and she recently secuted passage of a compre
hensive equal rights law for the city.
“In addition to her work for equal rights,
Cathy Woolard has been a leader in advancing
technology initiatives in Atlanta and making
the city government accessible on the Internet,”
noted Bond. “It seems only fitting that she will
be the featured public servant at our first online
forum.”
People interested in participating in the first
such online forum should visit the Victory
Fund’s web site at www.victoryfund.org at 7:00
pm on Tuesday, May 1, click on the link to the
chat and then enter the “Victor}' Fund Chat”
toom. Information about future chats will be
posted on tbe Victory Fund’s web site as it be
comes available. ▼