[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
[January 29, 1993]
[Pages 20-22]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 20]]


The President's News Conference
January 29, 1993

Homosexuals in the Military

    The President. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry, we 
had a last-minute delay occasioned by another issue, not this one.
    The debate over whether to lift the ban on homosexuals in the 
military has, to put it mildly, sparked a great deal of interest over 
the last few days. Today, as you know, I have reached an agreement, at 
least with Senator Nunn and Senator Mitchell, about how we will proceed 
in the next few days. But first I would like to explain what I believe 
about this issue and why, and what I have decided to do after a long 
conversation, and a very good one, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and 
discussions with several Members of Congress.
    The issue is not whether there should be homosexuals in the 
military. Everyone concedes that there are. The issue is whether men and 
women who can and have served with real distinction should be excluded 
from military service solely on the basis of their status. And I believe 
they should not.
    The principle on which I base this position is this: I believe that 
American citizens who want to serve their country should be able to do 
so unless their conduct disqualifies them from doing so. Military life 
is fundamentally different from civilian society; it necessarily has a 
different and stricter code of conduct, even a different code of 
justice. Nonetheless, individuals who are prepared to accept all 
necessary restrictions on their behavior, many of which would be 
intolerable in civilian society, should be able to serve their country 
honorably and well.
    I have asked the Secretary of Defense to submit by July the 15th a 
draft Executive order, after full consultation with military and 
congressional leaders and concerned individuals outside of the 
Government, which would end the present policy of the exclusion from 
military service solely on the basis of sexual orientation and at the 
same time establish rigorous standards regarding sexual conduct to be 
applied to all military personnel.
    This draft order will be accompanied by a study conducted during the 
next 6 months on the real, practical problems that would be involved in 
this revision of policy, so that we will have a practical, realistic 
approach consistent with the high standards of combat effectiveness and 
unit cohesion that our armed services must maintain. I agree with the 
Joint Chiefs that the highest standards of conduct must be required.
    The change cannot and should not be accomplished overnight. It does 
require extensive consultation with the Joint Chiefs, experts in the 
Congress and in the legal community, joined by my administration and 
others. We've consulted closely to date and will do so in the future. 
During that process, interim measures will be placed into effect which, 
I hope, again, sharpen the focus of this debate. The Joint Chiefs of 
Staff have agreed to remove the question regarding one's sexual 
orientation from future versions of the enlistment application, and it 
will not be asked in the interim.
    We also all agree that a very high standard of conduct can and must 
be applied. So the single area of disagreement is this: Should someone 
be able to serve their country in uniform if they say they are 
homosexuals, but they do nothing which violates the code of conduct or 
undermines unit cohesion or morale, apart from that statement? That is 
what all the furor of the last few days has been about. And the 
practical and not insignificant issues raised by that issue are what 
will be studied in the next 6 months.
    Through this period ending July 15th, the Department of Justice will 
seek continuances in pending court cases involving reinstatement. And 
administrative separation under current Department of Defense policies 
based on status alone will be stayed pending completion of this review. 
The final discharge in cases based only on status will be suspended 
until the President has an opportunity to review and act upon the final 
recommendations of the Secretary of Defense with respect to the current 
policy. In the meantime, a member whose discharge has been suspended by 
the Attorney General will be separated from active duty and placed in 
standby reserve until the final report of the Secretary of Defense and 
the final action of the President. This is the agreement that I have 
reached with Senator Nunn and Senator Mitchell.

[[Page 21]]

    During this review process, I will work with the Congress. And I 
believe the compromise announced today by the Senators and by me shows 
that we can work together to end the gridlock that has plagued our city 
for too long.
    This compromise is not everything I would have hoped for or 
everything that I have stood for, but it is plainly a substantial step 
in the right direction. And it will allow us to move forward on other 
terribly important issues affecting far more Americans.
    My administration came to this city with a mission to bring critical 
issues of reform and renewal and economic revitalization to the public 
debate, issues that are central to the lives of all Americans. We are 
working on an economic reform agenda that will begin with an address to 
the joint session of Congress on February 17th. In the coming months the 
White House Task Force on Health Care, chaired by the First Lady, will 
complete work on a comprehensive health care reform proposal to be 
submitted to Congress within 100 days of the commencement of this 
administration. We will be designing a system of national service to 
begin a season of service in which our Nation's unmet needs are 
addressed and we provide more young people the opportunity to go to 
college. We will be proposing comprehensive welfare reform legislation 
and other important initiatives.
    I applaud the work that has been done in the last 2 or 3 days by 
Senator Nunn, Senator Mitchell, and others to enable us to move forward 
on a principle that is important to me without shutting the Government 
down and running the risk of not even addressing the family and medical 
leave issue, which is so important to America's families, before 
Congress goes into its recess. I am looking forward to getting on with 
this issue over the next 6 months and with these other issues which were 
so central to the campaign and, far more importantly, are so important 
to the lives of all the American people.
    Q. Mr. President, yesterday a Federal court in California said that 
the military ban on homosexuals was unconstitutional. Will you direct 
the Navy and the Justice Department not to appeal that decision? And how 
does that ruling strengthen your hand in this case?
    The President. Well, it makes one point. I think it strengthens my 
hand, if you will, in two ways. One, I agree with the principle embodied 
in the case. I have not read the opinion, but as I understand it, the 
opinion draws the distinction that I seek to draw between conduct and 
status. And secondly, it makes the practical point I have been making 
all along, which is that there is not insignificant chance that this 
matter would ultimately be resolved in the courts in a way that would 
open admission into the military without the opportunity to deal with 
this whole range of practical issues, which everyone who has ever 
thought about it or talked it through concedes are there. So I think it 
can--it strengthens my hand on the principle as well as on the process.
    Q. Mr. President, there's a glass of water there, by the way, while 
I ask the question. Do you think, since you promised during the 
campaign--your literature put out a very clear statement: lift the ban 
on homosexuals in the military immediately--do you think you didn't 
think through these practical problems? What have you learned from this 
experience in dealing with powerful members of the Senate and the Joint 
Chiefs? And how much of a problem is this for you to accept a compromise 
which doesn't meet your real goals?
    The President. Well, I haven't given up on my real goals. I think 
this is a dramatic step forward. Normally, in the history of civil 
rights advancements, Presidents have not necessarily been in the 
forefront in the beginning. So I think the fact that we actually have 
the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreeing that it's time to take this question 
off the enlistment form, that there ought to be a serious examination of 
how this would be done, even though they haven't agreed that it should 
be done; that the Senate, if they vote for the motion advocated by 
Senators Nunn and Mitchell, will agree; Senators who don't agree that 
the policy should be changed are agreeing that we ought to have a chance 
to work through this for 6 months and persuade them of that, I think, is 
very, very significant.
    Now, I would remind you that any President's Executive order can be 
overturned by an act of Congress. The President can then veto the act of 
Congress and try to have his veto sustained if the act stands on its own 
as a simple issue that could always be vetoed. But I always knew that 
there was a chance that Congress would disagree with my position. I can 
only tell you that I still think I'm right; I feel comfortable about the 
way we have done this; and I'm going to maintain the commitment that I 
have.

[[Page 22]]

    Q. But do you think that you hadn't examined the practical 
problems----
    Q. Sir, I just wonder, do you think in retrospect that--obviously, 
you didn't intend the first week--I'm sorry, you want to----
    The President. No, I had always planned to allow some period of time 
during which policies would be developed to deal with what I think are 
the significant practical problems. This, in effect, may reverse the 
process over what I intended to do, but there has to be a time in which 
these issues, these practical issues are developed and policies are 
developed to deal with them.
    Q. Obviously, you didn't intend the first week of your 
administration, given your promise to have the laser focus on the 
economy, to be seen around the country as military gay rights week. I 
wonder if in retrospect you think you could have done things differently 
to have avoided that happening?
    The President. I don't know how I could have done that. The Joint 
Chiefs asked for a meeting about a number of issues, in which this was 
only one. We spent a lot of time talking about other things. This issue 
was not put forward in this context by me; it was put forward by those 
in the United States Senate who sought to make it an issue early on. And 
I don't know how I could have stopped them from doing that.
    Q. You don't think that in making the promise and then in promising 
to follow through on it early that you might have given rise to this, do 
you, sir?
    The President. Well, I think it was pretty clear to me that we were 
talking about some sort of 6-month process days and days ago. And the 
people who wanted it debated now were not deterred by that, and probably 
a lot of them won't be deterred by the agreement announced today. I 
think that we must--they have the perfect right to do this. But the 
timing of this whole issue was clearly forced by the people in the 
Senate who were opposed to any change of the policy no matter what the 
facts are. And I think that was their right to do, but they control the 
timing of this, not me.
    Q. Two questions. First of all, just to make sure that we're clear 
on this: July 15th this happens, period, regardless of what comes out at 
these hearings, is that correct? The ban will be issued, or will be 
lifted, rather?
    The President. That is my position. My position is that I still 
embrace the principle, and I think it should be done. The position of 
those who are opposed to me is that they think that the problems will be 
so overwhelming everybody with good sense will change their position. I 
don't expect to do that.
    Q. So you definitely expect to do it. And secondly----
    The President. I don't expect to change my position, no.
    Q. What do you think is going to happen in the military? There have 
been all sorts of dire predictions of violence, of mass comings-out, 
whatever. What do you think the impact of this is going to be, 
practically?
    The President. For one thing, I think if you look at the last 10 
years of experience here, according to the reports we have, this country 
spent $500 million in tax dollars to separate something under 16,500 
homosexuals from the service and has dealt with complaints, at least, of 
sexual abuse, heterosexual abuse, largely against women, far greater 
volumes. But during this period, we have plainly had the best educated, 
best trained, most cohesive military force in the history of the United 
States. And everybody, ask anybody, and the Joint Chiefs will tell you 
that.
    They agreed that we should stop asking the question. This single 
thing that is dividing people on this debate, I want to make it very 
clear that this is a very narrow issue. It is whether a person, in the 
absence of any other disqualifying conduct, can simply say that he or 
she is homosexual and stay in the service. I do not expect that to spark 
this kind of problem. And I certainly think in the next 6 months, as 
people start to work it through and talk it through, a lot of 
legitimate, practical issues will be raised and dealt with in a more 
rational environment that is less charged. That is certainly what I hope 
will happen.
    Thank you.
    Q. Want to tell us what the other problem was you were working on, 
Mr. President, on the Middle East, sir?
    The President. No, tomorrow or the next day.

Note: The President's first news conference began at 1:44 p.m. in the 
Briefing Room at the White House.