Elizabeth Birch doesn’t mince words about the upcoming election. The former HRC president and Hillary Clinton supporter tells Bay Windows‘ Laura Kiritsy, “At this moment of history for us it’s life and death. For other people it’s a wonderful privilege but for us it’s literally our lives.”
Despite her Hillary love, Birch takes aim at former president Bill Clinton, who ran our country during her HRC tenure: “[Clintonites say], ’Oh, we made such advances.’ We made no advances. We got left with ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and the Defense of Marriage Act… There’s cleanup to do now and we have to move forward and get laws in place.”
GranDiva
Oh, sure, Birch says that now. When it was actually happening, what did she have to say about it? Nary a word.
RC
Addenda from your original source, the site of Michael Petrelis:
“This thoughtful reply comes from longtime gay legal scholar, and occasional activist, Arthur S. Leonard, who certainly know his stuff, and offers a more balanced picture:
Michael,
Liz Birch certainly exaggerates.
We made important advances under Clinton.
We got for the first time executive orders protecting executive branch employees from sexual orientation discrimination.
We got a total revamping of the security clearance process that ended the “special procedures” under which gay people were frequently delayed or denied on security clearances, a real problem for people in technology occupations working for government contractors.
We got the first openly gay federal judge, the first openly gay ambassador, the first openly gay people occupying positions requiring Senate confirmation (like Roberta Achtenberg), the first openly gay people in senior White House staff positions.
We got a major advance on asylum policy when Janet Reno adopted as official precedent a decision that gays are a “distinct social group” for purposes of analyzing eligibility for political asylum in the US for people from oppressive countries.
And we got the first president who did not spout reflexively anti-gay positions from the White House on every issue.
What we didn’t get, unfortunately, was good pro-gay legislation, and the fault was largely because the Republican Party controlled both houses of Congress for 6 out of the 8 years of the Clinton Administration.
I agree that DADT on the military was a disaster, and that the Defense of Marriage Act represented shameless political calculation by Clinton in his 1996 re-election campaign.
He calculated, probably correctly, that the only way to take same-sex marriage off the table as a campaign issue (and to avoid a federal constitutional amendment writing a ban on same-sex marriage into the constitution) was to agree to DOMA, which was originally proposed, I believe, by Bob Dole.
We need to remember that DOMA was passed by a Congress controlled by the Republican Party, not the Democrats (although it is surely true that Democrats, if united against it, could have filibustered it in the Senate).
We need to think contextually about this and about DADT. I fault Clinton for failing to provide the leadership he should have provided back in 1993 when the military issue exploded. The best explanation is that he was confronted by leading Democrats, especially in the Senate, who told him that letting gays serve openly would not fly politically in Congress.
Anyone who says we got NOTHING from the Clinton years and were set backwards is oversimplifying and misrepresenting the state of affairs. It is a mixed picture overall, and we made real progress, mainly on fronts that could be controlled solely by the executive branch due to the lack of control by Democrats of the legislative branch.
We also, importantly, got our first major Supreme Court victory, Romer v. Evans, which was at least party attributable to Clinton’s two Supreme Court appointments, Breyer and Ginsburg, both of whom have been pretty stalwart in supporting gay rights on the Court. (They both voted our way in Lawrence v. Texas, and they both dissented in the Boy Scouts case.) Indeed, all of GW Bush’s Supreme Court appointees are firm opponents of gay rights.
Here’s another thoughtful view on Bill Clinton and his time in the
White House, this time from Sister Mary Elizabeth, the fantastic woman who runs the incredibly resourceful HIV/AIDS web site aegis.com:
Hi Mike,
I have to disagree a bit with the community view of the Clinton years.
Presidental candidates make big claims on what they are going to do, but
in reality, it is Congress that holds the purse strings and makes the
laws. Clinton could have issued an executive order allowing gays and
transgendered to serve openly in the military (keep in mind that I’m the
only transgender to serve openly in the military as both male and
female, albeit my female service was cut short after 22 months).
The moment Bill Clinton announced he was going to issue an executive
order, Senator Sam Nunn went on the warpath, taking his dog and pony
show on the road to lobby against the executive order. The American
people followed by electing a Republican congress, essentially tying
Clinton’s hands.
Two things are going to have to happen before Gays can serve openly.
Article 125 of the Uniform Military Code of Justice has to be revised or
repealed, and Congress has to pass a law allowing gays (and
transgendered) to serve openly in the military.
Clinton was faced with some hard decisions during his term of office.
He veto’d some bills that were gay and transgendered friendly, yes. But
what was attached to those bills? Basically legislation that would have
been disastrous to the country at large. I know it sucks, but
Washington isn’t a nice place, and attaching junk legislation to an
important bill is one way of killing it.
During the Clinton years I ran the White House NAPO electronic bullet
board from my living room, and made two trips to Washington to service
and upgrade the board. On my first trip there were 28 employees in the
office. On my second trip, after the Rethugs took control of Congress,
the office had been stripped of 24 of its employees.
Clinton was far from perfect, but I do believe that Congress shares more
of the blame that Clinton, for what happened during his two terms. One
of the errors he made was not firing Colin Powell, when he publicly
spoke out about Clinton’s plan to allow gays in the military. Remember,
when the much loved MacArthur spoke out publicly against Truman, Truman
fired him.
Best always,
Mary”
seitan-on-a-stick
Elizabeth Besmirched was busy burping babies in the Champagne room of HRC to pay any close attention to Gay progressive causes, especially AIDS. In times of regression, how the fallen mighty weigh in like some reality show that you know will be replaced mid-season. Don’t print a picture of her, my retinas have not healed from the “gay” nineties and all the fabulous things HRC didn’t do. There is a toilet in New York that will give you your 15 minutes, Lizzie B. PS – Bill can’t run for a third term but at least we would have a Presidential winner after 7 years of the Bush Crusades on Gays. We ARE that desperate!!