The Press : At Issue: Gays in the U.S. Military

Last week’s debate in Washington over restrictions on homosexuals in the armed services sparked widespread comment in the world press, which questioned President Clinton’s control over his agenda as much as his position on the issue. A sampling:

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“It is said that Clinton did it for political reasons. Because the homosexual vote carries as much weight as the Hispanic vote, they deserve to be flattered and defended in the military. Nevertheless, the unacceptable historic result is that the new president of the most powerful country--in a moment when he speaks of crisis and change, of resuming world leadership and of improving the economy, of paying more attention to domestic than foreign problems; in that magnified historical setting--makes his first decision in defense of homosexuals. . . . “Many have applauded the measure. Perhaps they don’t realize that by officially accepting (them), the American military will become the homosexual army. It can have the best arms in the world, but before many nations it will have no moral authority.”

-- Jose Angel Conchello in El Universal , Mexico City

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“Bill Clinton’s haste has alienated not only the Pentagon and the religious right, but also the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. It has engaged him in a formidable test with Congress. By dividing American opinion into two equal camps, the President has also rendered the solution to this delicate problem more difficult.”

-- Pierre Lefevre in Le Soir, Brussels

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“William Jefferson Clinton has learned some early lessons about the limits of presidential power. . . . The chiefs are set against him. Congress is turning against him. The gays and lesbians of America are themselves a potent interest group. Mr. Clinton should stand by his promise nonetheless. The credibility of a president is all.”

-- The Times , London

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“So those in charge of the last remaining superpower are squabbling. Smaller problems such as Bosnia, Somalia and Iraq are also on the agenda, but the most important thing comes first: Is an army which is mixed in every way capable of combat or would it have been better to capitulate to the Warsaw Pact to avoid this moral decline?”

-- Andrea Boehm in die tageszeitung , Berlin

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“Elected on the promise of rebuilding the American economy, taking office at the moment when American troops are in Somalia and when American planes bomb Iraq, Bill Clinton saw his first week as president monopolized by the problem of homosexuals in the Army.”

-- Liberation, Paris

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“Mr. Clinton knows the arithmetic of Congress and he knows the tenor of middle America’s views. He should not have given gay activists the impression that the world was otherwise, or that he could change it overnight. . . . On attaining office, he could have gone back to the leaders of America’s gay communities and told them that the pledge he had given would take time. There are many quiet ways in which an administration can work behind the scenes for change . . . .”

-- Columnist, acknowledged homosexual Matthew Parris in The Times , London

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“Clinton is giving his puritan citizens a shock therapy. . . . Stupidity and prudishness are coming to the fore when military and congressional representatives fear that morale and order could be disturbed on missile bases, tanks, aircraft carriers and in the corridors of the Pentagon.”

-- Almuth Nehring in Junge Welt , Berlin

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“Mr. Bill Clinton made a beginner’s mistake in starting a battle over lifting the 50-year-old ban on homosexuals in the army as soon as he was elected. . . . It was a strange spectacle at the White House during these last days. There was the head of the world’s primary military power spending long hours with his generals and admirals discussing not the situation in Somalia, in Bosnia, or in the former Soviet Union, but whether it is possible to admit gays into the armed forces. . . . This affair risks leaving a feeling of unease . . . “

-- Le Monde, Paris