Nunn the Wiser?

For those interested in the forces that propel -- and obstruct -- political change, last week offers an object lesson. Obama's clinching of the Democratic presidential nomination has made real the prospect of badly needed change on a wide range of issues. But some worry that the young candidate could have trouble turning his soaring rhetoric into tangible improvement for American lives if he takes the White House.

Although the country faces huge challenges in economic, climate, foreign and other policy questions, there is a smaller issue awaiting action that serves as a bell weather for the kind of nation American will become in the years ahead: whether the promise of equal treatment should extend to gays and lesbians who want to serve their country in uniform.

Like other major Democratic candidates, Obama has come out clearly for ending discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in military service. But none has been able to do so. Now, however, the tide may finally be turning. On the same day as Obama sealed the nomination, Sam Nunn, the former senator whose name has surfaced as a possible Obama running mate, publicly ended his opposition to openly gay service, a leap forward for the lawmaker who had been the principle Congressional sponsor of the gay ban back in 1993. Nunn said last week that "times change" and it is now "appropriate to take another look" at the policy. His remarks came three days after his friend, Charles Moskos, chief architect of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, died, depriving the world of an affable and passionate military sociologist but also of the sole remaining intellectual defender of anti-gay discrimination in the military.

The question now is what is the future of the policy that even Charles Moskos once called "insidious," and that the former Judge Advocate General of the Navy has called "odious"? Will the falling dominoes of opposition result in its demise or will social conservatives and their representatives in Congress succeed in keeping the ban in place as an expression of their moral opposition to homosexuality? Could Barack Obama, as candidate or president, use the bully pulpit to finally end one of the last remaining instances of government-sanctioned discrimination in America?

In his remarks about the gay ban last week, Sen. Nunn said any reconsideration of the policy should begin with "a Pentagon study." Likewise, in one of the last interviews on the subject before his death, Charles Moskos called for a "bipartisan commission" to study the policy. No one is against research, but all too often, such language is used as a delay tactic to sound reasonable while avoiding taking real action that could be warranted by what the latest research shows. After all, it was Nunn himself who, in spearheading opposition to gay service in 1993, said even then that the issue should be "studied" carefully and that no action should be taken "overnight."

During that battle, in which Nunn badly wounded his own party's leader, the senator's reputation as a national security expert and staunch defender of the military -- to colleagues, he was known as "Mr. Defense" -- made it plausible for him to frame the national conversation in terms of military readiness, rather than the civil rights terms favored by advocates of gay equality. The key question, Nunn said in the dramatic Senate hearings he held in the spring of 1993, was not morality or fairness but military effectiveness. As a seasoned political operative, he was able to ensure that the Senate deliberations appeared fair-minded, calm and serious. He insisted that his moral beliefs had no bearing on his position on the issue and on how he conducted the Senate hearings. "I can tell you that I have my own moral beliefs," he said, "but that's not playing a role in my hearings." Nunn even said Americans needed to be "tolerant of people who have different lifestyles."

All of it sounded eminently reasonable, except that anyone with a modicum of experience in politics could see that Nunn used the "study" period not to assess the evidence in order to put the issue to an informed vote, but to build an arsenal of weapons to defeat the effort to lift the ban. Time was used not to learn, but to let opposition fester and grow. Studies were buried when they concluded the wrong thing. And hearings were stacked against Nunn's political opponents.

When Nunn found out that the planned testimony of retired Army Colonel Lucian Truscott III would describe the experiences of openly gay service members seamlessly integrated into their units, he removed him from the roster. When Nunn realized that the father of modern conservatism, Barry Goldwater, was also planning to testify that gays ought to be allowed to serve openly in the military, he replaced him too.

Concerns about military effectiveness certainly drove Nunn's efforts. But they also reflected what can only be understood as antipathy to gay people. In 1984, Nunn backed Senator John Glenn's bid for the White House, citing his "courage" in expressing the "strongly held moral belief that homosexuals should not be the role models for our children." Nunn dismissed two political aides because they were gay, and defended his actions by saying they could not work effectively on classified matters because their homosexuality made them a security risk. Asked in 1993 if he believed that the heterosexual lifestyle was "morally superior to the homosexual lifestyle," Nunn answered that he was "not only saying that" but that "American family deterioration is one of the biggest problems we face in our culture," implying that tolerance of gays and lesbians was a leading contributor to the problem.

In the end, little changed for gay troops, and Nunn worked hard to derail even the minimal reforms that President Clinton continued to promote as he lost the battle to lift the ban altogether.

Fifteen years later, Nunn's had second thoughts. "I think [when] 15 years go by on any personnel policy, it's appropriate to take another look at it," he said last week, to "see how it's working, ask the hard questions, hear from the military." Nunn is now even suggesting that the law he championed was just the "beginning point," making it "possible for people to serve honorably in the military without lying on the application." It's revisionist history at best: nowhere in the record did Nunn ever make the case that he was shepherding through a temporary law (although other players did view "don't ask, don't tell" this way). And while it's true that gay recruits no longer have to lie on their enlistment applications, they continue to have to lie on a daily basis while serving -- any time a peer asks them the most basic question about their personal lives.

As can be seen by revisiting Nunn's past words and deeds, the true source behind opposition to gay service was never concerns about unit cohesion, as was often stated, but moral animus to gay rights. And so his call now to "study" the issue ought to raise eyebrows. Indeed, in the case of gay service, it's not clear that any more studies are needed. An enormous amount of data has accumulated since 1993 showing that openly gay service does not impair the military, but that the ban itself wastes talent, further stretching our forces and undermining trust among troops who are not allowed to be honest with one another. The research includes studies conducted and commissioned by the government and even the Pentagon, which in some cases have been suppressed by military officials when the results conflicted with the current policy of anti-gay discrimination. Twenty-four nations now allow gays to serve openly, and thorough studies of their experiences corroborate that banning open gays is both unnecessary and damaging to the forces.

Nunn's call for reconsideration of the gay ban is a welcome development, but his proposal for a Pentagon study is behind the curve, especially given the military's history of burying studies on this topic whose conclusions its leaders oppose. Over 140 members of Congress have already signed a bi-partisan bill to repeal "don't ask, don't tell," and a Congressional committee is planning hearings on the matter this summer. Ultimately, the fate of the ban on open gays rests in the hands of Congress. But with Nunn's new course and Moskos' death, two giants of support for the gay ban are no longer championing discrimination. This changing of the guard also gives Barack Obama a historic opportunity to succeed where Bill Clinton failed, and to show he will be a new kind of politician, who is not cowed by fear. Whether Obama leads on this issue will say a great deal about what kind of president he plans to become.

Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at the Palm Center at UC-Santa Barbara, is author of the forthcoming Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America.

Comments

[RobtBrock]

Wait a minute...you are saying that Nunn is still ALIVE?

[PoliticalAnimal]

San Nunn may be a reformed bigot, but we need to see the evidence and it is not yet on display.

We would also need to see a great deal more contrition. Because of him, thousands of gay lives have been ruined. His actions have directly led people to take their own lives, and his words have proven hateful and hurtful to millions of others.

Mr. Nunn's irresponsible actions also weakened President Clinton mortally and divided the Democrat Party at a critical time. His tactics undermining Clinton led to the President's undoing - he was so badly weakened by Sam Nunn's gay witchhunt that he was left completely vulnerable to the neoCONs attempted coup d'etat/impeachment.

Let Mr. Nunn stay down in Dixie on his lily-white, all thoroughly manly hetero world. He belongs to a distant, bigoted past. Let him stay there.

[tuttlemsm]

"To balance the ticket
The south can be won
With someone more exciting and thrilling!
Sam Nunn?!"

-Mark Russell in 1988, on the prospect of Michael Dukakis choosing Sam Nunn as his runningmate

If Nunn was actually interested in the VP slot, he would have accepted then, as he was almost certainly offered it (according to the conventional wisdom of the time).

Nunn doesn't just have an anti-gay problem. Nunn was one of 13 Senators who opposed bringing up legislation in 1975 to renew the 1965 Voting Rights Act, although he voted for a bill in the end. In 1982 Nunn voted to renew the act, but he supported an amendment by South Carolina's Strom Thurmond to limit its extension to 15 rather than 25 years. Nunn voted against ending a filibuster holding up a fair-housing bill in 1980, opposed a 1978 move to extend the ratification period for the Equal Rights Amendment, and has supported a constitutional amendment to limit abortion. In 1972 Nunn ran as an antibusing candidate and supported George Wallace for President.

So what would you call putting him on a ticket with BO? "Balanced," to say the least.

[Krikkit]

Problem is that the military doesn't want this opened up again. Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" was as close as he could get to overturning the ban on gays in the military, and he had to shove even that down their throats.

Maybe there ought to be a more creative solution in the interim, like setting up an all-gay force. Before you laugh at the idea, remember that during the civil war there were special black companies set up so that these men who wanted to fight could do so at a time when incorporating them into the regular army was impossible.

We're desperately in need of certain skills, and when we boot people out who have those skills just because they are gay, we are shooting ourselves in the face. It took separate accomodations for African Americans before they could be integrated into the regular forces. Why not take a page from history and get on with it?

[JackNasty]

Clinton caved in by endorsing don't ask. He didn't fight Sam Nunn for even a moment. The fact is Clinton failed to sign an executive order ending the ban as he had promised. Clinton signed dozens of other executive orders on his first day in office.

Pretending that Clinton's endorsement of don't ask was anything but a betrayal to gay men and women in the military is revisionism of the most revolting kind.

[Deaninphilly]

You seem to forget there that Clinton was going up against a Republican Congress. Why is it some people think the President can do whatever he wants and Congress can't do anything about it? He did the best he could given the circumstances at the time.

Funny I'm a gay man and don't feel betrayed. Neither do most of the gay people I know. The only ones that harp on it constantly are the same ones that the majority of gay people try and distance themselves from because they cause more harm than good. Never satisfied!

[tuttlemsm]

You've got to be kidding. You're actually using segregated black regiments as a positive precedent for the suggestion that we have segregated gay units in the military.

I usually like your posts, Krikkit, but this one's off base. Segregated units were a shameful period in history. What we we learn from it is that these periods in military evolution are to be avoided, not emulated.

[KeysDan]

Fortunately, Sam Nunn is not a "lawmaker", but rather, a former lawmaker, having retired from the senate over ten years ago. Perhaps, the senior status his 71-years have given him are ameliorating his homophobic opposition to gay men and women serving opening in the military, but a surer bet is raw political opportunism. President Clinton's proposal to change military policy by executive order, much in the same manner as President Truman had done to accomplish desegregation in the military some 40 years earlier, was not only undermined, but also, supplanted by and codified into federal law as a result of Nunn's lawmaking so ably assisted by an insubordinate Colin Powell, then Chairman of the JCS. It was, also, payback time for Nunn having been denied by Cllinton, his long-held ambition to be Secretary of State. Clinton passed him by for the job owing to his homophobic reputation, highlighted by Nunn's firing of his own staff upon revelation of their being gay. Nunn's considering DADT as a "personnel" matter belies his redemption and points toward his rekindled hopes for a key cabinet position in an Obama Administration. Consideration of Nunn as an Obama running mate is a personnel matter that should be given a chuckle and quick dismissal. I often wondered who was behind the Nunn juggernaut and the answer came in a puff piece by none other than the Weekly Standard's William Kristol in his NYT op-ed column. This should be a clincher, if any doubts remain.

[nanoscare]

Nunn voted with the Republicans most of the time anyway, he ain't getting on the ticket.

[otterhound]

I hope you are correct. He would be a very poor choice for VP. Also, as a veteran of the Vietnam era, it is naive to think gays are not in the military. They are in all of the services and are among the finest of those serving. Everyone in the military knows this but those who oppose gays in the military choose to ignore this in order to bolster their own discomfort with a reality they cannot accept.

[BenMAF]

"cowed by fear" is not appropriate language to describe Bill Clinton. I'm 27, gay and I am proud don't ask don't tell was passed. It was a step forward and I think the first Federal step forward to protect gays in American history (correct me if I'm wrong).

Obama will be in a unique position to advance gay rights if elected as the environment for the LGBT community has continuously improved. I don't think that makes Obama courageous to support what 3 out of 4 Americans now support.

Courageous would be if he said he supports Gay Marriage - but he doesn't and I don't expect him to say it either (because it would be politically stupid and help no one). It does make me wonder if 10 years, people will look back at Obama and say he was "cowed by fear" for not supporting Gay Marriage in 2008.

[Krikkit]

I think the way the country as a whole is handling the gay marriage issue is the way to go. States are making the decisions and other states are respecting those laws. This isn't something that the Fed should be getting involved in.

[JackNasty]

In 1993 President Clinton signed the first federal legislation enacted to deny equal protection to gay Americans : Don't Ask.

In 1996 President Clinton signed into law the second federal law that denied equal protection to gay couples under the law, DOMA.

It wasn't a step to equality. It was a step backwards.

[Deaninphilly]

Hey Jack, from one gay man to another Shut Up!

It's people like you who set back gay rights for people with your pushy attitude rather than let people gracefully come to acceptance. You're type is not the majority of gay people and I am sick to death of your kind always trying to shout on my behalf.

It's obvious you're a far leftist type person and quite frankly you're no better in your tactics than the far right no matter what the cause.

[heal57]

A little more time is needed. People are comfortable with 'unions' for gays. Just think back 20 years, you could not 'come out 'without terrible repercussions. Things will take their course and gay marriage will be accepted, but I don't think it will happen too quickly. I don't think anyone will say Obama was 'cowed by fear'. That's just not his MO. Give us all a little time. We are all the same inside and each day it gets more acceptable. Younger people look at things differently; they're not as set in their ways from old school parenting. It's a State issue anyway.
There's so much on Obama's plate this just is going to have to wait in my humble opinion, but all in good time....Oh, and Nunn is not VP material but may be a great advisor.

[LittleBrother]

How prophetic the great Abraham Lincoln proved, when he uttered the famous phrase in his Second Inaugural address: "With malice toward Nunn..."