By Robert L. Maginnis, policy analyst with the Family Research Council
March 1995 – During the first two years of the Clinton Administration, most federal agencies have amended their equal employment opportunity and civil rights policies to include the term “sexual orientation.” These changes are not justified by law.
For example, Carol Browner, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, sent a memo to all EPA employees on October 14, 1994, stating, “Today, the EPA joins the growing list of public and private sector employers which have added ‘sexual orientation’ to our equal employment opportunity policy.”1
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros did the same in August, 1994 with a memo that states, “Sexual harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation are unacceptable in the workplace and will not be condoned at HUD.”2
Department of Transportation Secretary Federico Pena published his statement in 1993 which declares, “[N]o one [can] be denied opportunities because of his or her race, color, religion, sex...or sexual orientation.”3
The Federal Bureau of Investigation joined the chorus when director Louis Freeh stressed that “homosexual conduct is not per se misconduct” and adopted a new policy to admit homosexuals to the ranks of the Bureau.4 Several homosexuals are now being trained to become FBI agents.
Freeh’s boss, Attorney General Janet Reno, declared that the Department of Justice will not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation when conducting security clearances.5 Although homosexuality has long been a marker for homosexual misconduct, Reno removed any reference to sexual orientation from application forms. Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA), an open homosexual, stated, “The clear implication is that, outside the uniformed military services, being gay will not be a relevant factor.”6
Moreover, Reno ruled that a foreigner, who claimed that he was persecuted by his government for being homosexual, may be eligible to immigrate to the U.S.7 In 1994 the Attorney General waived immigration laws so that avowed HIV-infected homosexuals could participate in New York’s “Gay Olympics.”8
This official recognition of homosexuals is taking place without legislative action. Indeed, there are no laws requiring these changes, and little chance that such laws could be passed. Homosexuals are being awarded a special class status based solely on behavior, not on a benign characteristic like race or gender.
The Administration’s official recognition goes further. Office of Personnel Management Director James King sent a memo to all OPM employees in January, 1994 announcing the formal recognition of the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Employees (GLOBE) as a professional association. This recognition bestows on GLOBE the same privileges extended to other associations. For example, GLOBE can now use government facilities, communication systems, bulletin boards, and have official representation at personnel meetings.9
GLOBE’s stated purpose is to “promote understanding of issues affecting gay, lesbian and bisexual employees; provide outreach to the gay, lesbian and bisexual community; serve as a resource group to the Secretary on issues of concern to gay, lesbian and bisexual employees; work for the creation of a diverse work force that assures respect and civil rights for gay, lesbian and bisexual employees; and create a forum for the concerns of the gay, lesbian and bisexual community.”10 There are more than 40 chapters throughout the federal government.11
The Department of Transportation GLOBE chapter earned some notoriety when posters depicting famous people alleged to be homosexual were displayed on bulletin boards. The posters were made at government expense and identified Eleanor Roosevelt, Virginia Woolf, Errol Flynn, and Walt Whitman as homosexuals.12
Federal Aviation Administration employee Anthony Venchieri complained when he received a DOT voice mail message inviting him to “celebrate with us the diversity of the gay and lesbian community.” The message was broadcast to all 4,100 DOT voice-mail users. He was removed from the system after complaining but was later reinstated. FAA’s Office of Civil Rights spokesman stated, “The Department of Transportation has officially recognized the organization [GLOBE].…The FAA complies with this recognition of an employee association which contributes to employee welfare and morale and assists in fostering a climate of diversity and inclusion.”13
GLOBE also uses government facilities to promote homosexuality. During June 1994, many federal agencies permitted GLOBE chapters to use space to host homosexual programs. For example, DOT hosted six events in the Washington headquarters. Those included: a panel of DOT officials discussing diversity; a presentation by Parents, Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays; and a program on the gay and lesbian Asian Pacific American community.14
The diversity agenda
“Diversity” is a vogue concept that is being used to advance the homosexual agenda.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has embraced diversity. In a July 1994 memo entitled, “Stepping Stones to Diversity: An Action Plan,” the service proclaims, “Managing diversity needs to be a top service priority....The service must also recognize that the differences among people are important.”15
DOT’s Secretary Pena left no doubt about what he means by diversity. In a policy statement he defines it as “inclusion – hiring, developing, promoting and retaining employees of all races, ethnic groups, sexual orientations, and cultural backgrounds….”16
The Department of Agriculture joined the diversity movement in March 1994 by establishing a GLOBE chapter.17 A report in The Sacramento Valley Mirror shows just what the Department of Agriculture and, more specifically, a subordinate organization, the Forest Service, means by diversity.18 According to that article, diversity means a redefinition of family, promoting gay pride month, and encouraging the use of federal resources to promote homosexual causes.
A letter from Region 5 Forester Ronald E. Stewart to his employees outlines Forest Service recommendations concerning homosexuals. Stewart’s memo to “All Region 5 Employees” says, “We can not allow our personal beliefs to be transformed into behaviors that would discriminate against another employee.”19 The recommended policy:
➤ Prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation.
➤ Empowers homosexuals to serve as mentors and network coordinators.
➤ Incorporates sexual orientation awareness training.
➤ Establishes a computerized network for isolated homosexual employees.
➤ Awards pro-gay work settings.
➤ Encourages local “multicultural awareness celebrations” like gay pride month.
➤ Directs supervisors to consider an employee’s domestic partner when assigning schedules.
➤ Prohibits private permittees and concessionaires from discriminating against domestic partners.
➤ Mandates unions to become pro-active in the “sexual diversity” movement.
➤ Requires that contracts include domestic partner services.
➤ Guarantees government child care for children of an employee’s domestic partner.
➤ Considers gay and lesbian owned businesses when arranging local purchase agreements.
The proposals encourage Forest Service employees to lobby for the following.
➤ Amend federal travel regulations to incorporate the needs of domestic partners.
➤ Adopt this definition of a family: “A unit of interdependent and interacting persons, related together over time by strong social and emotional bonds and/or by ties of marriage, birth, and adoption, whose central purpose is to create, maintain, and promote the social, mental, physical and emotional development and well being of each of its members.”
➤ Advocate to the Small Business Administration the inclusion of gay- and lesbian-owned businesses eligible for minority set-aside contracts.
➤ Advocate that retirement benefits include domestic partners.
➤ Add non-discrimination provisions to all private sector contracts prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation except for bona fide religious and youth groups.
Diversity training mandatory
Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Katherine Abraham, whose performance agreement with Secretary of Labor Robert Reich includes diversity training, hosted three-hour diversity training sessions for BLS employees. The paid guest speaker began each session by stating, “Diversity means our national survival.”20 He closed the session by reading a letter from homosexual BLS employees complaining about discrimination. The guest concluded, “What’s necessary in the workplace is for everybody to have the attitude that people are not good, not bad, just different.”21
The U.S. Postal Service is also promoting diversity. During a November 1, 1994 diversity seminar a guest psychologist suggested that “aggressive recruitment is needed,” that government must, “develop, attract and retain members from under-represented groups.” His speech followed legal counsel’s presentation on the new non-discrimination policy for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals.22
The Forest Service has a training booklet entitled, “Valuing Diversity.” Inside the booklet are statements such as: “Fact: Psychological and social influences alone cannot cause homosexuality....Fact: A biological (genetic, hormonal, neurological, other) predisposition toward homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual orientation is present at birth in all boys and girls.” No source for these “facts” is provided, nor could there be.23 So-called genetic studies on homosexuality are flawed and conducted by homosexual activists.
The U.S. Health and Human Services department sponsored a “Multi-Culture Day” in Dallas, Texas, in April, 1994. An HHS employee gained official permission to man an exhibit, “Highlighting Our Gay and Lesbian Culture.”24
Four federal agencies hosted a “Global Diversity Day” on May 25, 1994 at San Francisco’s U.S. Customs House. The activities were attended by 300 federal employees and included displays by gay, lesbian, and bisexual representatives. On display were a rainbow flag that was flown at the 1993 March on Washington, posters displaying famous homosexuals, and cultural items such as books and GLOBE applications.25
Possibly the largest diversity event was hosted by the U.S. Navy on September 8, 1994 near the Pentagon. Diversity Day ’94 included an opening ceremony with a welcome by a three-star admiral who stated, “The federal and private sector must make diversity part of business.”26 He also said that the work environment “is not a matter for moral issues.”27
The government’s guest speaker was diversity expert and professor at Northeastern Illinois University Dr. Samuel Betances. He equated racism, sexism, and homophobia and then stated, “We can start all over if need be.”28 He explained that former Alabama Governor George Wallace, a one-time racist, started over by recanting his racist beliefs.
Betances encouraged homosexuals to organize “to get respect” much like women, blacks, and Latinos organized.29 He emphasized that all of us “must be prepared to unlearn” old ways. He observed that homosexuals are “part of the diversity equation whether we like it or not” and that they “need a climate of respect.”30
The activities included a seminar entitled “Another Color of the Rainbow: Sexual Minorities in the Workplace” taught by an acknowledged lesbian, and a videotape, “On Being Gay,” which promotes homosexuality as the moral equivalent of heterosexuality.
The U.S. Air Force Academy already has a diversity day scheduled for April 1995. The symposium is entitled, “Strength Through Diversity Leadership Symposium.” Conference director Colonel David Wagie says that his program will not include “sexual orientation” issues. He explained, “We are interested only in using the term as officially defined and used by [Department of Defense].”31
The Navy, however, is cruising toward sexual diversity. Secretary of the Navy John Dalton wrote the following in his diversity policy statement on May 23, 1994: “Our continued success requires that each civilian employee and applicant be afforded the opportunity to excel without regard to his or her race, color, gender, sexual orientation.…”32
AIDS awareness or more “diversity” training?
President Clinton announced on September 30, 1993 to all heads of executive departments his HIV/AIDS policy. The policy requires each secretary to designate a senior staff member to implement HIV/AIDS education and prevention programs and to develop workplace policies for employees with HIV/AIDS.
The training has received a mixed review. Federal employees have called the Family Research Council to complain that they found the training offensive.
Two supervisors and 41 employees in the Federal Communication Commission’s audio services division chose not to attend mandatory “AIDS Awareness Training.” An FCC employee stated, “The classes are basically an adult version of high school sex ed, with the modern-day sensitivity training thrown in.”33
Department of Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary created “Walkin’ the Talk” AIDS training materials for three-hour, mandatory training sessions. The DOE’s Office of Economic Impact and Diversity coordinated the funds for the training. A memo from the Department’s Federal Workplace HIV/AIDS Education Coordinator states, “All employees are required to complete this training.”34
The training includes a brief history of HIV, symptoms and prevention and risk reduction. There is a discussion of needle sharing and sexual contact. Federal employees are told to reduce their HIV contraction risk by practicing “safer sex” by using barriers like condoms, dental dams, plastic wrap, and latex gloves. The manual states, “A dental dam (a small, square piece of latex) or plastic wrap may be used for any oral-vaginal or oral-anal contact. All types of barriers (condoms, dental dams, and plastic wrap) are effective against HIV transmission only if they are used correctly and consistently from start to finish.”35
The training materials are based on government “evidence” and the materials espouse confidence in latex which is not supported by research. For example, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention misrepresent a wealth of conflicting scientific evidence. The CDC does a disservice to the American public when it promotes condoms as a responsible prevention strategy. CDC places its hopes on the correct and consistent use of condoms, an unreached and unreachable goal.”36
The Energy Department makes a disclaimer: “HIV is transmitted without regard to gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, or identification with any group. For this reason, we avoid referring to high risk groups.” Not identifying “high risk groups” is irresponsible. The CDC HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report shows that at least 87% of HIV victims either contracted the virus from homosexual encounters or by sharing needles.37
Probably the most outrageous example of government-sponsored AIDS training was done for the Forest Service. It took place in the Forest Service’s Tahoe Region on May 6, 1994 and was conducted by a local health official with degrees in sexology, a self-described homosexual phlebotomist (individual who draws blood), and an HIV-positive woman from the community.38
Most of the “infectious disease training” addressed HIV/AIDS. The phlebotomist was an ex-convict who tried to debunk “homophobic” misconceptions. He speculated that many husbands were involved in homosexual affairs. He showed a variety of condoms and how to apply them to a life-size replica of erect male genitalia. He even explained a technique for using one’s mouth to apply the condom. He also explained the proper cleaning techniques when sharing hypodermic needles.39
One of the workers in the audience later complained, “There seems to be no logic or equity in penalizing one employee for repeatedly bringing up Christmas at work, during December because he or she believes in God, while instructing other employees how to use intravenous drugs or engage in anal sex.”40
Feds fund “gay science”
In Fiscal Year 1993, in addition to more than $2 billion for AIDS, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded 84 grants worth over $20 million to research topics that primarily involve homosexuals.4l These grants include:
➤ “Phone counseling in reducing barriers to AIDS prevention,” which studies homosexual men who are purportedly unable to avoid unsafe sexual behavior.42
➤ A project that examines how “stress generated by societal reactions leads adolescents who are coming-out to be at higher risk of problems” than their heterosexual peers.43
➤ A project entitled “Drinking, drug use and unsafe sex among gay and bisexual couples” which explores the relationship “between drinking, drug use and unprotected sex...among gay and bisexual couples.”44
➤ A study designed to analyze behavioral data about HIV transmission among bisexual men in Mexico.45
A study by Dr. Dean Hamer provides a good example of how federal funds are being used to help advance gay political activism.
Dr. Hamer, chief of the Gene Structure and Regulation Section, Laboratory of Biochemistry of the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, published the results of his two year “gay-gene” research project, “A Linkage Between DNA Markers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orientation,” in the July, 1993 edition of Science.46
The Family Research Council published an investigative report on Dr. Hamer’s study. The report shows problems with the study, Hamer’s promotion of homosexuality in the media, and questions whether federal funds were properly used.47
While published NCI budgets do not identify money earmarked for Dr. Hamer’s research, funding for Hamer’s research (which totaled $420,000) apparently came from money designated for research into Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS).48 NCI’s press office indicated that Hamer’s study looked at KS, which is an AIDS-related cancer prevalent among gay men.49 And Hamer promoted his research as a multifactorial study investigating host genetic factors for Kaposi’s sarcoma and lymphoma.50
Yet, curiously, Hamer “ran no tests to determine whether his clients had KS.’’ And Hamer stated in a court deposition that he has never published anything on Kaposi’s sarcoma.”52
More taxpayer-funded gay research is in the works. Hamer wrote a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala arguing for the creation of an NIH Office of Gay and Lesbian Health Concerns. The American Medical News reports that the HHS will seriously consider Hamer’s proposal. Hamer envisions the office going beyond research into the origins of sexual orientation to include HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, breast and gynecologic cancers, substance abuse and adolescent suicide.53
In addition, Angela Pattatucci, one of Hamer’s research assistants, has an ongoing project that deals with genetics and lesbianism. According to Victoria L. Magnuson of Hamer’s NIH office, Pattatucci’s “lesbian study has a cancer component.” Yet the advertising fliers developed for this study call it a study of the “genetic nature of sexual orientation...a gay gene study.” They state that “per diem and travel expenses” would be covered by “NIH,” and that subjects would be interviewed by “gay-positive” persons.54
(Pattatucci’s track record raises serious questions about her objectivity as a researcher. She recently told Network, a homosexual magazine based in New Jersey, “I believe the most important thing a gay person can do is to be public about his or her homosexuality.” That article included a picture of Dr. Pattatucci holding her jacket open to reveal a T-shirt with the word “DYKE” written in large, bold type.55)
Federal employees on the homosexual agenda front
U.S. Patent and Trademark Commissioner Bruce Lehman is a self-described homosexual who promotes Commerce Secretary Ron Brown’s “Diversity Policy.” For those who object, Lehman states, “As far as I’m concerned, it’s got to be forced down their throats. If they want to be bigots, they can go work for someone else’s department.” The agency’s director of human resources created a “diversity recruitment support team” to spend up to 15 days of diversity recruiting in 1995.56
The nation’s former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders told homosexual magazine The Advocate, “Americans need to know that sex is wonderful and a normal...and healthy part of our being, whether it is homosexual or heterosexual.” She endorses adoption of children by homosexuals and called the Boy Scouts’ ban on homosexual Scouts and Scout leaders “unfair.”57
Roberta Achtenberg is HUD’s assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. She appeared in San Francisco’s 1992 gay pride parade riding in the back seat of a convertible next to her “partner” (Mary Morgan, a San Francisco municipal court judge) and “their” child. The sign on the car said: “Celebrating Family Values.”58
While a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors and a member of a United Way chapter in that area, Achtenberg helped to defund the Boy Scouts for their moral standards. She has continued her activism in the federal government.59
In February 1994 Achtenberg signed a diversity policy that requires managers to “participate as active members of minority, feminist or other cultural organizations” to qualify for an “outstanding” rating.60
Some federal agencies have appointed homosexual watchdogs to ensure employee compliance with pro-gay diversity policies. For example, the Foreign Agriculture Service has a gay, lesbian and bisexual program manager. This is a collateral duty to take no more than 20 percent of the manager’s time. Her task is to promote the gay, lesbian and bisexual employment program and to develop and disseminate information on employment matters throughout the agency.61
Discouraging Dissent
Federal employees who object to the diversity push beware! U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board Chairman Ben Erdreich has embraced diversity. The MSPB is the agency that rules on federal employee appeals of personnel actions. Erdreich told his employees on November 19, 1994: “I have a strong commitment to diversity and equitable treatment in the workplace....Managers will be graded on...respect for diversity in the workplace and [the extent to which they] perform responsibilities without regard to the differences of race, color… sexual orientation….”62
Department of Agriculture and senior EEO manager Karl Mertz ran into the diversity wall. On March 4, 1994 Mertz told a reporter when asked about then-Secretary Espy’s gay-rights agenda, the AG Department should be headed “toward Camelot, not Sodom and Gomorrah.”63
Mertz was later told that his interview conflicted with Department civil rights policy “which could seriously undermine your ability to perform your responsibilities. “ He was transferred to a non-management job.64
Conclusion
The Clinton Administration is methodically unleashing an avalanche of pro-homosexual policies and advocacy. It is costing the federal taxpayer millions of dollars and discriminates against workers who object on religious and/or other grounds. The 104th Congress should investigate this abuse and reverse the federal government’s promotion of homosexuality under the label of diversity. 
Footnotes are available. Send self-addressed, stamped envelope to: Maginnis footnotes, American Family Association, P.O. Drawer 2440, Tupelo, MS 38803.
