Contrary to what many believe, Bill Clinton will not be remembered for his “bimbo eruptions,” his impeachment, his balanced budget, or the fact that he presided over the most prosperous economic expansion in generations.
Instead, history will see Clinton as one of the great and accomplished civil rights heroes. In fact, historians will compare Clinton to two of America’s most treasured civil rights legends: Martin Luther King Jr. and President Harry S. Truman. What these three men accomplished is astonishingly similar. It is only the minorities they championed that set them apart.
In 1963, King said to a mostly black audience “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed” and he broke open the consciousness of white America.
In 1992, Clinton said to a mostly gay audience, “I have a vision for America and you are a part of it,” and he broke open the consciousness of straight America.
Both men used soaring oratory to broaden the idea of rights to include a despised minority. One urged us not to judge people by the color of their skin, the other not to judge people by the partners in their lives. Both created homesteads in the hostile outer fringes of America’s consciousness, settling the land and tilling the soil for future residents.
Each enraged much of America by holding up our stated ideals with one hand and a mirror with the other.
Of course, William Jefferson Clinton was no Martin Luther King. Clinton was the head of government; King was the victim of it. King championed a minority from a position of weakness, Clinton from a position of strength. King had no power, just a constituency. Clinton had both. These men had nothing in common except a profound belief in America’s capacity to grow into further greatness.
Clinton is more like President Truman in his tangible accomplishments. In 1948, Truman did the unthinkable: Over the strenuous objections of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, he signed an executive order desegregating the armed forces.
In 1993, Clinton did the unthinkable: Over the strenuous objections of General Colin L. Powell, he promised to sign an executive order lifting the ban on gays in the military.
While Clinton failed where Truman succeeded, historians will ultimately credit him for making the lifting of the ban possible. In fact, it is precisely because “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” so perfectly captures the cruelty and unfairness of the military’s treatment of gay recruits that the ban will eventually be lifted.
Clinton’s similarities to Truman are remarkable. Truman appointed the first black judge to the federal bench; Clinton appointed the first openly gay woman to the federal bench.
Truman was the first president to appoint blacks to high-ranking administrative posts; Clinton was the first president to appoint openly gay people to high-ranking administrative posts. According to Clinton, over 200 openly gay people served in his administration.
Truman signed an executive order barring discriminatory hiring practices in the federal government; Clinton signed an executive order expanding it to include sexual orientation.
Truman established a Fair Employment Board within the Civil Rights Commission; Clinton endorsed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the first gay civil rights bill ever championed by a U.S. president.
And in what historians now agree was an act of great symbolic importance; Truman was the first sitting president to address a black civil rights group (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Clinton was the first sitting president to address a gay civil rights group (The Human Rights Campaign).
Both presidents legitimized minorities to the Republican Party. Republicans now routinely address and court the black vote. And in an astonishing turn-around for a conservative party, George W. Bush, in 2002, became the first Republican presidential nominee to publicly meet with a gay group. Truman and Clinton paved the way for politicians in both parties to embrace groups they once pushed away.
Historians do not see civil rights as a Clinton legacy for the same reason historians didn’t see it for Truman when he left office in 1952: Because to much of America, the minorities in question didn’t matter.
As the American consciousness evolved to see African-Americans as fully human, so too did the consensus of historians that Truman’s civil rights work was one of his greatest legacies.
Similarly, as the American consciousness evolves to see gay men and women as equally human, historians will see Clinton as one of the late 20th century’s greatest human rights crusaders.
The real Clinton legacy isn’t how he reformed welfare or reshaped the Democratic Party. It’s how he reshaped the American conscience. Like King and Truman, Clinton will come to symbolize the American ideal of justice and equality.
[...] Sure, there have been others that have come close, notably Gavin Newsome, the mayor of San Francisco, and Bill Clinton. Yes, BILL CLINTON (click here to see why he’ll remembered as a gay civil rights pioneer). [...]
April 16th, 2009 at 5:22 pmAre you insane? Bill Clinton signed the most onerous homophobic bill into law in my lifetime, the Orwellian named Defense of Marriage Act. It is, and should be called the Homophobic Marriage Rights Exclusion Act, HomREA.
I agree that he did sometimes make some half hearted attempts at making things better in some other limited ways, mostly rhetorical, but failed every time. His sad legacy, is a homophobic one, not a gay friendly one. In fact, as much as progressives like myself hate to admit it, most progress towards full equality for all our citizens without respect to race, religion, or sexual orientation, has been accomplished by Republicans and/or Jurists appointed by Republicans.
Progress has even been accomplished over the objections of Democrats, the Gay marriage veto override in VT, being the latest example. It’s a sad legacy that progressives and Democrats need to start seriously addressing, particularly now that several Republicans have started publicly advocating for marriage equality.
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April 19th, 2011 at 7:08 pm