Goldwater Backs Lifting Gay Ban

Former Sen. Barry Goldwater declared Thursday that the military should lift its ban on gays because “you don’t need to be straight to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.”

He said study after study had proved that homosexuals are not security risks and said the current debate is a waste of time because the ban ultimately would be lifted, just like prior bans on blacks and women in the military.

Conservatives and former colleagues accepted the 1964 Republican presidential nominee’s typically blunt comments with deference but said they are not ready to embrace his opinion.

“I certainly would respect his comments,” Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said. “I don’t agree with it.”

If he were still in the Senate, Goldwater said, he would support President Clinton’s effort to lift the ban. In an opinion piece in The Times today, Goldwater said that after 50 years in politics and the military, he still marvels that people can get upset over nothing.

“Lifting the ban on gays in the military isn’t exactly nothing, but it’s pretty damned close,” he wrote.

Goldwater said conservatives who supported the military ban were ignoring their movement’s core principle, “that government should stay out of people’s private lives.”