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Blunder or setup the rubber gloves incident
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by Inga Sorensen
ozens of lesbian and gay officials and
their partners gathered June 13 in the
Indian Treaty Room, where they
nibbled on chocolate-covered straw
berries and mingled with the likes of
Vice President A1 Gore.
“I have to admit that a few of us wondered
whether there was any significance to us having
our reception in that particular room,” said George
Eighmey, a state representative from Oregon, who
was among a group of 40 gay and lesbian politi
cians who attended the now-infamous meeting
with White House officials. Ironically, the meeting
had been arranged to improve relations between
the Clinton administration and the lesbian and gay
community. What it became was a public relations
fiasco, after uniformed Secret
Service guards donned blue rub
ber gloves to greet the delegation
as it made its way through the
White House gates. So much for
making peace.
“There’s no doubt about it. It
was shocking when it happened,
and it still shocks me when I
think about it,” says Eighmey.
“There we were waiting to make
our way through the White House
gates. A guard saw us and took
out a box of rubber gloves. The
person I was standing next to
also saw this; we looked at each
other and said, ‘Do you see what
I see?’ We were both in disbelief. Bill Clinton
“ I then asked the guard
whether that was [standard procedure] and he said,
‘No, it’s optional...I could have a cut on my
finger.’ He said the gloves were being used to
‘protect’ the guards from diseases, and then he
asked me if I had a ‘problem’ with that. I said it was
nothing I couldn’t handle later.”
The delegation received its tour of the White
House, and then sat down for a three-and-a-half-
hour briefing with cabinet members and top White
House advisers. The gathering, which President
Clinton did not attend, was held in the Old Execu
tive Office Building next to the White House.
In addition to the delegation— which included
gay and lesbian officials from 19 states—partici
pants included White House pol itical director Dou
glas Sosnik, White House legal counsel Abner
Mikva, Health and Human Services Secretary
Donna Shalala; Housing and Urban Development
Secretary Henry Cisneros, and White House Of
fice on AIDS Policy Director Patricia Fleming.
During the meeting, several delegation mem
bers reportedly told administration representatives
that they feared the president has alienated many
gay men and lesbians— that the perception is that
he has backpedaled numerous times on sexual
minority rights issues, most notably on his promise
to overturn the ban on gay men and lesbians in the
military. And, just last month, the administration
said it would not file a U.S. Supreme Court amicus
brief opposing Amendment 2, a discriminatory
initiative passed by Colorado voters in 1992.
According to Eighmey, the dialogue was a
healthy give and take. As for the rubber gloves
incident, it has created a national controversy and
forced Clinton to issue an apology. “I want to
apologize for the inappropriate and insensitive
treatment several of the participants were sub
jected to at the entrance gate of the White House.
It was wrong,” he wrote in a letter dated June 16,
which was sent to the lesbian and gay officials. “I
D
deeply regret any insult or embarrassment you
suffered. You are welcome in the White House,
and I look forward to continuing to work with you
in the future.” Clinton also noted in the letter that
Secret Service Director Eljay Bowron was taking
steps to ensure that “it” will not happen again.
“[White House aide] Bob Hattoy thinks this
was all designed to embarrass the president. I
mean, let’s face it, Clinton is not liked by any of the
military types who work under him,” says Tom “
Richardson, coordinator of the Oregon AIDS
Hotline.
“He really seemed to think that this was a setup.
He said that those folks had already received so
much training around AIDS issues that it was
impossible that they didn’t know you couldn’t
contract HIV through casual con
tact. I would be inclined to agree
with [Hattoy] because it seems
impossible that in this day and
age people don’t even know the
basics.”
Others disagree: “Obviously
there’s been a lot of talk about
this around CAP [Cascade AIDS
Project],” says Philip Vamum,
CAP’S manager of resource de
velopment. “We’re all so appalled
that there is so much ignorance
right there in the White House.
The assumptions that were made
about how HIV is contracted are
outrageous, but it’s also outra
geous that the guards automati
cally assumed that all gay men
and lesbians pose a risk to their health. It was a very
anti-gay action.”
Three days after the incident. The New York
Times published a harshly worded editorial de
nouncing the guards’ actions: “If this was an act of
stupidity by low-level guards, then special training
and administrative punishments seem in order. But
if this was a calculated attempt to insult [lesbians
and gay men], dismissal from the service is the
only fit response. If Secret Service superiors sanc
tioned use of the gloves in advance, they, too,
should be disciplined or dismissed. That such an
event should happen not in some benighted back
water but at the gates of the White House is a
shocking reminder of how intolerant this society
remains toward [lesbian and gay] citizens. The
White House press secretary said officials were
‘distressed’ about the incident. But this is a matter
upon which President Clinton should speak for
himself, as he surely would if foreign guests or
members of an ethnic minority or religious group
had been insulted in his house as a result of igno
rance or malice.”
Eighmey, meanwhile, says he’s trying to look
at the positive side of an ugly situation. “I figure
that our historic meeting at the White House would
have only been a footnote in The New York Times
if this hadn’t happened. Now everybody knows a
group of openly gay and lesbian elected officials
was invited to the White House. That is nothing to
sneeze at.”
He also says delegation members received
hearty handshakes from Gore during the reception
following the briefing. “Once we got by the guards
we were treated royally,” he says.
As for why Clinton didn’t attend the briefing
and reception, Eighmey says: “The vice president
explained to us that the president couldn't be there
because he was preparing his remarks about the
budget.”