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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 31, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Editorial: Clinton's values and gay rights

Is there no end to President Clinton's insults to the gay community? Apparently not. The latest evidence: His re-election campaign is trying to appeal to religious right wingers on an anti-gay basis.

Of course, lies, betrayals, back stabbing and craven capitulation to the right wing have been Clinton's hallmarks since day one of his administration. Who can forget "don't ask, don't tell"-under which anti-gay witch hunts in the military have actually increased. Then there's his Justice Department's refusal to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the case of Colorado's anti-gay amendment. Even the Supreme Court, which ultimately overturned the law, was to Clinton's left on that one.

The president's behavior in the last few months has topped it all. First he endorsed the vicious "Defense of Marriage" Act. The law bars federal marriage benefits from same-sex couples-who cannot now legally marry anyway. Clinton admitted that the Republicans introduced the bill simply to whip up homophobia. He opposes discrimination, he claimed. Yet he felt compelled to sign DOMA, he said.

And sign it he did-enshrining discrimination even more deeply into federal statute-in the middle of the night, with no cameras or reporters present.

But it didn't end there. The president and his handlers seem confident that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people will vote for him no matter what he does to them. So he keeps doing it to them.

In October, the Clinton campaign started running anti-gay commercials on religious radio stations. On the commercials, the announcer actually boasts that Clinton signed the anti-gay-marriage law. By signing the law, the president "defended our values," listeners are told.

When civil-rights groups got wind of the ads, an outcry forced the Democrats to withdraw them. The groups demanded the campaign air new commercials apologizing for the anti-gay one.

That won't happen. Clinton used to posture as a friend to the gay community. Now he brags to right wingers about how anti-gay he is.

But something else is happening. With each additional move to the right, with each new outrage, Clinton alienates more people. More people grow disgusted with all the politicians and the system. More people start looking for an alternative.

There is one. Workers World Party candidates Monica Moorehead and Gloria La Riva support the right to same-sex marriage. They say dismantle the Pentagon and use the funds to provide housing, health care and education for all-and to fully fund the battle against AIDS. They're for a federal civil-rights law that extends full equality to gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people.

Most of all, they're for fighting back. That's the spirit of the Stonewall Rebellion-marked every year by parades in which both Moorehead and La Riva march.

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Copyright © 1996 workers.org