Homosexual, Civil Rights Groups Unite in Fight to Lift Military Ban

In an unprecedented effort, gay-rights organizations are forming a national coalition with civil rights groups to win support for President Clinton’s plans to lift the military’s ban on homosexuals.

Stunned by last week’s uproar over the issue, gay and lesbian leaders say that they will mount a multimillion-dollar campaign to sway public opinion and Congress.

“This truly will be a massive effort,” said David Mixner, a Los Angeles gay activist and Clinton campaign adviser who will head the coalition’s fund-raising efforts. “We are fighting for survival as a civil rights movement.”

The coalition already has a name--the Campaign for Military Service--office space in Washington, D.C., and a coordinator, gay-rights attorney Thomas B. Stoddard.

“This effort arises from the gay and lesbian community but embraces organizations and people far beyond the gay and lesbian community,” Stoddard said. “We will attempt to enlist allies from all of our companion civil rights movements and also from religious” organizations.

Thus far, the major non-gay groups to join are People for the American Way, a liberal lobbying organization, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Gay-rights advocates succeeded in building such an alliance to fight an anti-gay initiative in Oregon last fall. But this marks the first effort to forge such a coalition around a gay issue on the national level.

Driving the campaign is the realization that the military-ban debate has become an unexpected crucible for the gay-rights movement. “If we lose this fight, we risk losing every fight of the future,” Stoddard warned.

With public opinion nearly evenly divided over the issue--and those who oppose it tending to do so more strongly than those who support it--congressional hearings will be a key forum.

“Hearings are an opportunity to tell people’s stories and we will win this if we have the opportunity to tell the stories of our brothers and sisters who have been treated badly,” Stoddard said.

Advocates also will turn to grass-roots organizing, a media campaign, Capitol Hill lobbying and a gay-rights march on Washington this spring.