Gay appointments by Bush draws fire from some conservatives

President Bush has angered some conservatives for the second time in a week after he appointed two openly gay Republicans to serve in his administration. Scott Evertz, a pro-life Roman Catholic Republican will become the first openly gay member of George W. Bush's administration, serving as the director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. A longtime AIDS and gay rights activist named Stephen Herbits will work as a consultant and special assistant to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. His responsibilities include recruiting and screening employees for the department.

Many in the gay community are applauding the appointments. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a gay lobbying group spokesman said that the group "applaud(s) the decision as a positive sign from the Bush administration." Other gay groups are indifferent, but consider the National AIDS Policy director post a sham and dismissed the appointment of Evertz in much the same way they dismissed the appointment of Sandy Thurman under Bill Clinton. Act-Up, a militant AIDS action organization discussed both the appointment of Evertz and Thurman before him as simply another in a series of ineffective, no-name bureaucrats who have headed the office.

President Bush is in a difficult position. On the one hand he is trying to be inclusive and include people in his administration who share similar beliefs who have diverse backgrounds. On the other hand, many conservatives consider the Bush administration their best chance to reclaim the ground lost under the immoral and some say corrupt Clinton administration. President Bush can appease gays and lesbians by appointing people to positions in his administration, but should the appointments of gays be limited to advisory roles in an office that ought not to exist?

No question that there are many gay people qualified to serve the American people in a public policy position. Bush should surround himself with people from all walks of life and that includes, to the chagrin of some conservatives, gay people as well. The problem with the Bush administration appointment of Evertz to the National AIDS Policy directorship is not that he is gay, rather that the office should not have been continued after Clinton left office. There is no need to have an office related to policy specific to AIDS.

The Centers for Disease Control is more than adequate to handle the public policy issues in an advisory manner in areas that are disease specific. AIDS was elevated to the White House in order to appease a small voting segment of the population. Billions of dollars every year are spent in the prevention and treatment of men and women who become infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS. The public policy issues dealing with AIDS should have no more a place at the White House than policy dealing with other deadly diseases. Who has been appointed as the Cancer Czar? Where is the Chicken Pox Police? What about the Heart Disease Gestapo? Bush should disband the National AIDS Policy office and refrain from making the mistake the Clinton made in making AIDS seem more important than other diseases that people in the nation suffer from.

It may be politically correct to continue giving the American people the impression that AIDS is a disease that strikes indiscriminately and that the people who suffer from it are innocent victims of some pathogen that they could not avoid, but to do that lets people who contracted AIDS through their own behavior off the hook. To allow the White House to be used as a backdrop to a disease that has been elevated to a status symbol or right of passage in the gay community is not helpful in halting the spread of the preventable disease that is only contracted when people behave in a manner that is unsafe. People with AIDS are suffering, no question, but they are not suffering more than people who have other diseases, yet for some reason the other diseases are not worthy of an office in the Old Executive Office Building.

Stephen Herbits, appointed as an assistant to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, may be well qualified as a counselor on issues dealing with homosexuality, but I don't think he qualifies as a special advisor to a department the group he founded believes should endure further budget cuts and should lift the ban on gays serving openly in the military. Herbits was a founding member of Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), gay lobbying organization. GLAAD has issued many press releases and statements highly critical of the very policies that Secretary Rumsfeld will be asked to review and decide. Is it a surprise that these same gay organizations are applauding the appointment of Herbits to the very position that will place him in a position to have the ear of the Secretary? Of course not.

GLAAD is a vocal opponent of "don't ask; don't tell", the policy dealing with gays in the military. Each time a soldier, sailor, airmen, or Marine is charged with violating the order, GLAAD and other organizations like the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), comes out to challenge the policy that Herbits will now be in a position to advise upon. Further, GLAAD and SLDN lobbied Congress to allow HIV positive men and women to join the military and to remain on active service, regardless of the cost or consequences that such service would cause. Herbits may be a good gay activist, but he should not be in a position to offer advice on issues dealing with personnel in the Department of Defense.

I join with GLAAD and the HRC in their applause for President Bush being open to gays and lesbians serving in his administration, but I reject the notion that in order to please the left and the gay lobby that he should appoint men and women, gay or straight, who oppose the very positions that so many in the Republican Party support. Granted that the appointments of Everts and Herbits represent only two of thousands of appointments in the administration and that their positions are relatively unimportant, in the case of Everts a position that should disappear. It is a fact, however, that there are many gays and lesbians who support the Bush administration in full and who should have been considered for appointments before people whose current positions may match the administration's, but whose previous positions certainly did not.

Conservatives who are upset about Bush appointing gays to his administration have to understand that it is going to happen from now on and that there is really nothing they can do about it. What they should focus their energies on is supporting gay appointees who are conservative and believe in their agenda, instead of opposing any appointee based solely on the fact that he or she happens to be gay.

President Bush received millions of votes from gays and lesbians across the country. Of course not all gays believe in everything the administration believes in, but it is politically imprudent to appoint a man to a position in a department that he has openly opposed or to a position that should not exist to begin with. I hope that President Bush appoints people to his administration who will serve him well instead of people who will serve a special interest