Melissa Etheridge and John Edwards

Let’s hear it for Melissa Etheridge. She didn’t waste any time at the gay forum for presidential candidates Thursday night by hitting candidate John Edwards with his own words right in the face. She said he’d been quoted as saying he was uncomfortable around gay people. Then, she asked, “are you okay now?”

Edwards laughed nervously and then made a feeble attempt to set the record straight…or at least I think that’s what he was doing. First of all, he said, “that was said by a political consultant….” Excuse me, does he mean that automatically implies the fellow was lying? If not, what does it mean? Then, Edwards said, “That is wrong.” I think he even repeated the phrase, “That is wrong.”

Once again, what did he mean by “that is wrong.” If he meant to say it was a lie, that he had been misquoted, that he never said he was uncomfortable around gays, it’s too late for that. His own consultant, Harrison Hickman, has confirmed that he was in the room when Edwards had the exchange with Bob Shrum in 1998 and that it did take place. On the other hand, if he meant to say he never should have said that, well, too late for that too. He DID say it and it casts a shadow over all his other progressive proclamations. How about an apology for ever thinking such thoughts? I doubt we’ll ever hear that from a politician in our time.

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I was not able to see the LOGO broadcast where I live, so I’m relying solely on video clips on their website and excerpts published in the New York Times and elsewhere. However, there does seem to be some confusion lingering about “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” This was not the policy of President Bill Clinton. Clinton had pledged during the campaign that he would do away with the military’s ban on homosexuals, period. However, once he was inaugurated and announced he was going to issue an executive order carrying through with this, the shit hit the fan in the Pentagon and Congress. The reactionary forces were not lead by some rabid Republican, but by Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia. A Coast Guard veteran, Nunn suddenly emerged as the macho defender of all things military. He set out to block the move to remove the ban on homosexuals altogether. He succeeded in getting the compromise now known as “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” President Clinton had no choice but to accept it as a step in the right direction.

It is an absurd policy that simply does not work. It is also bad for morale among straights and gays in the military. It encourages people to lie by saying it’s okay to be gay so long as you don’t tell anybody about it. What an absurd way to live. It puts straight military personnel in the position of having to report it if a colleague does talk about being gay; and, as I said, it puts gays in the same old societal position of having to lie about who they are in order to do their job.

A survivor of the Nazi death camps said it best: “Freedom is not having to lie about who you are.”

Having said all of the above, I should add that for a person born homosexual when I was, 1941, it is heartening that we even had such a forum. It’ll be another hundred years before the Republicans have such a forum. The Democrats who participated are to be congratulated for just showing up. And the panel is to be applauded for bringing the debate to a national audience and asking all the right questions.