Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Unity amid an uproar: Gay ban remains at issue Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 15:07:56 EST Message-ID: \SE A \HD Unity amid an uproar: Gay ban remains at issue \SH Top Democrats tackle gridlock \BY J. Jennings Moss \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES \DT LITTLE ROCK, Ark. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - President-elect Bill Clinton, caught in a growing uproar over his vow to drop the military's ban on homosexuals, said yesterday he would move ahead on the issue "early" in his term but said he felt the concerns for privacy in the armed forces were justified. Mr. Clinton, flanked by Vice President-elect Al Gore and Congress' three top Democratic leaders, said again that he would work with the military on the best way to implement the historic change. As for one of the proposal's sharpest critics - Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia - Mr. Clinton said the difference of opinion does not rule out Mr. Nunn for a job as defense secretary. While the issue of homosexuals in the military dominated much of the Arkansas governor's second news conference as president-elect, Mr. Clinton staged the event to present a unified front with his party's congressional leadership. "I don't want a continuation of the cold war between the Congress and the White House. Pennsylvania Avenue will run both ways again," Mr. Clinton said. "The leadership and I share a common commitment to our No. 1 priority - creating jobs, raising incomes, getting our economy moving again and the long-term competitive strength of the American economy." Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore, along with Hillary Clinton, had dinner and spoke for three hours with the congressional leaders - House Speaker Thomas S. Foley of Washington, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine and House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri. They praised the meeting as productive and informative. "The message of this meeting is simple and clear: Gridlock is over and cooperation and teamwork have begun," Mr. Gephardt said. Among the topics discussed during the dinner were the federal deficit, the specifics of the presidential transition, the savings and loan crisis and the condition of financial institutions, and a proposed line-item veto. "We are going to depart from some of the problems and difficulties of the last 12 years," said Mr. Foley, who added that he was organizing the House earlier than usual so Mr. Clinton could offer his proposals before his inauguration if he wanted. Mr. Clinton, who has proclaimed a mandate from the voters, lowered expectations a notch for his honeymoon and said he could not predict what would pass in his first 100 days in office. "So I will be in a hurry and I will work as hard as I can, but I don't have an agenda which says we're going to do this in 100 days and this in 200 days. I'll just work as hard as I can and get as much done as quickly as I can," he said. Mr. Clinton will meet with President Bush at the White House tomorrow and huddle with congressional leaders in Washington on Thursday. During the campaign, one item Mr. Clinton said he would be in a hurry to accomplish would be to "immediately" end the military's decades-long ban on homosexuals. The issue erupted last week because of the lawsuit of a homosexual sailor who won the first round of a legal battle and was reinstated in his Navy job. "I have made no decision on a timetable except that I want to firmly proceed and I want to do it after consulting with military leaders. I've made no decision about what structure to follow," Mr. Clinton said. "I intend to press forward with that in an expeditious way early in the term just like I said," he added later. Mr. Clinton said he found compelling the concerns of Mr. Nunn, the Georgia Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, that allowing acknowledged homosexuals in the military would violate the privacy of others. But he said other arguments outweighed them. "And so the issue, therefore, is not whether there are gays in the military; it is whether they can be in the military without lying about it, as long as there is a very strict code of conduct, which, if they violate it, would lead to dismissal from the service or other appropriate sanctions," Mr. Clinton said. Asked if this difference of opinion would end Mr. Nunn's chances to be defense secretary, Mr. Clinton said no. "It doesn't preclude consideration of him for any position, as far as I'm concerned. . . . I don't expect my friends or supporters to agree with me on every issue," Mr. Clinton said. A Clinton aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, described the homosexual issue as being secondary to other qualifications placed upon a prospective defense secretary - agreeing with Mr. Clinton on how to reduce the size of the military, how to rearrange forces and how to convert defense jobs into civilian positions. Despite some characterizations that Mr. Clinton is hedging on his proposal to end the ban, Clinton aides and homosexual-rights groups remain convinced it will happen. "He's drawn a line in the sand and said this policy of discrimination will not stand," said Gregory King, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign Fund. "What the president-elect and his staff have skillfully done is get this issue out early and by the time he is inaugurated, his plan to change the military is old news." Mr. Clinton and the congressional leaders made it clear that when Inauguration Day comes Jan. 20, the top issue for them will be the economy. But while they agreed that increasing the number of jobs and encouraging both private and public investment were the main priorities, there appeared to be disagreement over some specifics. The most pronounced divisions are between Mr. Clinton and Mr. Mitchell over Mr. Clinton's proposals to give the middle class a tax break and to give himself the power to cut individual line items out of the budget. On Sunday, Mr. Mitchell said the middle-class tax cut was "on the table," but yesterday Mr. Clinton said that during their dinner the senator also said he thought the tax system was regressive. "So if we can work it out, I would like to present a plan that is consistent with what I have recommended all during the campaign, to provide some tax fairness on which to build a long-term deficit-reduction plan," Mr. Clinton said. Mr. Clinton said he found "intriguing" Mr. Foley's compromise proposal on the line-item veto. The compromise would give the president the authority to veto a spending item in a bill but would allow Congress to override by a simple majority instead of having to muster the two-thirds majority of both houses that is required to override normal vetoes. But Mr. Mitchell, a longtime opponent of the line-item veto, would say yesterday only that he would review the matter. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM