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Presidential
Candidates' Perspectives on Sodomy and DADT
By
Paul Schindler, Editor, Gay City News
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Published in
Gay City News (New York City) 04/18/2007
In the wake of Gay City News' story last week
reporting that four of the Democratic
presidential hopefuls had gone on the record in
opposition to the ban on sodomy in the Uniform
Code of Military Justice, the party's current
frontrunners, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, New
York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and former
North Carolina Senator John Edwards told this
newspaper that they too believe the policy must
change.
Seven of the eight contenders for the 2008
Democratic presidential nomination have in the
past two weeks stepped up in support of the
privacy rights of gay military personnel.
Article 125 of the UCMJ bars both oral and anal
sodomy, even though the United States Supreme
Court, in its 2003 Lawrence v. Texas ruling,
threw out the remaining state laws prohibiting
any private, adult, consensual sexual behavior.
In an April 16 e-mail to the newspaper, Jen
Psaki, deputy press secretary for the Obama
campaign, wrote, "Barack Obama agrees with
the Supreme Court's conclusion in Lawrence that
our criminal laws should not target and demean
the lives of gays and lesbians. He also believes
that gay and lesbian Americans who wish to serve
their country should have the opportunity to do
so with dignity and respect and supports the
repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Particularly at
a time of war, Barack Obama feels that our
military should be focusing on attracting
patriotic individuals who are willing to serve,
rather than excluding such individuals on the
basis of their sexual orientation and their
private, lawful conduct."
A day later, Jin Chon, a Clinton campaign
spokesperson, wrote, also via e-mail,
"During Senator Clinton's recent remarks to
the Human Rights Campaign, she agreed with
Justice [Anthony] Kennedy, who wrote in Lawrence
v. Texas, that 'times can blind us to certain
truths and later generations can see that laws
once thought necessary and proper in fact serve
only to oppress. As the Constitution endures,
persons in every generation can invoke its
principles in their own search for greater
freedom.' Therefore, Sen. Clinton believes that
the Lawrence decision should be extended to the
military as well."
An April 18 e-mail from Kate Bedingfield, an
Edwards spokeswoman, stated that the 2004 vice
presidential nominee "believes that the
treatment of all service members should be based
on their role in maintaining national security,
not their sexual orientation. The Uniform Code
of Military Justice should conform to the
Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v.
Texas."
In making their positions public, Obama,
Clinton, and Edwards join four of the other
Democrats in the hunt for the party's
presidential nomination - Delaware Senator Joe
Biden, Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, Ohio
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and former Alaska
Senator Mike Gravel - in coupling their
opposition to the current Pentagon policy
barring openly gay and lesbian soldiers with an
endorsement of the right to sexual privacy by
such soldiers if and when they are allowed to
serve.
All eight of the Democrats seeking the
presidency are on the record in opposition to
Don't Ask, Don't Tell, though when queried on
the question of sodomy, the campaign of New
Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who served
President Bill Clinton as energy secretary and
United Nations ambassador, spelled out his
position on open service by gays and lesbians,
but did not address the private conduct issue.
The nine Republican hopefuls for president are
united in their support for maintaining the
Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, with former Mayor
Rudy Giuliani recently reversing his earlier
advocacy of ending the ban on open gay service.
At the Manhattan St. Patrick's Day Parade,
Giuliani told Gay City News' Andy Humm,
"The policy should stay the same while
we're at war... We're in a particularly intense
phase."
Among the Republicans, who were posed the same
questions as the Democrats, only Arizona Senator
John McCain and Colorado Congressman Tom
Tancredo responded, both reaffirming their
support for Don't Ask, Don't Tell and their
opposition to ending the sodomy ban. Tancredo
spokesman, Alan Moore, specifically linked the
two issues, saying in an e-mail, "The
Congressman supports the 'don't ask, don't tell
policy' therefore he also supports the military
ban on sodomy."
In fact, the bulk of the sodomy prosecutions in
the military are pursued against heterosexual
soldiers, according to the Servicemembers Legal
Defense Network, a Washington-based advocacy
group for LGBT soldiers. Gay service members
facing potential sodomy prosecution are instead
typically discharged under the Don't Ask policy.
However, should a Democratic president succeed
in ending the ban on openly gay and lesbian
soldiers serving, that victory could easily be
compromised by stepped-up enforcement of the
sodomy ban. In effect, service would be opened
up only to sexually-abstinent gay soldiers.
Aaron Tax, an SLDN staff attorney, writing last
week on the group's blog, at http://freedomtoserve.blogspot.com,
pointed to the divisive impact of the current
sodomy policy, both among gay and straight
soldiers.
"One unforeseen consequence of the ban is
that because of the threat of consensual sodomy
prosecutions hanging over service members'
heads, when two service members are alleged to
have engaged in consensual sodomy, there is an
incentive for at least one to cooperate with the
prosecution and claim the activity was
nonconsensual," Tax wrote. "As a
result, it is easier to convict at least one of
the parties, resulting in service members,
guilty of nothing more than engaging in
consensual sodomy, being sent to prison."
©GayCityNews 2007
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