sexual tension between members of the same sex
was judged to have a deleterious effect on unit cohe-
sion and morale. Cammermeyer was honorably dis-
charged in 1992, but she filed a civil suit. After newly
elected President Bill Clinton changed the stipula-
tions regarding homosexuals in the military in 1993,
and after a federal district judge in Seattle over-
turned the National Guard’s discharge of her the
following year, Cammermeyer was permitted to re-
main on active duty until she retired in 1996. That
year, she ran for Congress in Washington State, win-
ning the Democratic Party nomination but losing by
a substantial margin to the Republican candidate in
the general election.
The Cammermeyer controversy was one of many
in the 1990’s featuring the growing visibility of gay
and lesbian Americans in a sphere of life where
many had assumed they had not existed. Along with
the emergence of lesbian cultural figures such as
Melissa Etheridge and Ellen DeGeneres, Cammer-
meyer helped put a human face to the struggle of les-
bians and gays for social acceptance. There was a
close tie in the 1990’s between gay and lesbian self-
assertion and the Clinton administration, which ap-
pointed gays and lesbians to high office in unprece-
dented numbers and generally fostered a tolerant
attitude toward homosexuals that often excited
sharp opposition among conservative Republicans.
A television dramatization,Serving in Silence(1995),
starring Glenn Close, helped popularize Cammer-
meyer’s story even further. The Cammermeyer con-
troversy was also one of several scandals in the 1990’s
involving sex and the Army, such as the Tailhook
scandal, that revealed a military uncertain in its
adaptation to a post-Cold War role.
Impact Throughout U.S. history, the military has
been a microcosm of society; as various groups have
received full civil rights, their participation in the
military has been expanded or recognized. The
Cammermeyer controversy was a crucial test of
whether this progressive narrative extended to gays
and lesbians.
Further Reading
Cammermeyer, Margarethe.Serving in Silence. New
York: Viking Press, 1994.
Francke, Linda Bird.Ground Zero: The Gender Wars in
the Militar y. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Miller, Diane Helene.Freedom to Differ: The Shaping of
the Gay and Lesbian Struggle for Civil Rights. New
York: New York University Press, 1998.
Nicholas BirnsSee also Clinton, Bill; DeGeneres, Ellen; Don’t
ask, don’t tell; Etheridge, Melissa; Homosexuality
and gay rights; Scandals; Tailhook incident; Women
in the military. Campaign finance scandal
The Event Interlocking series of scandals
involving campaign finance in the 1996 Clinton
reelection campaignThe scandal served as a dark cloud over the final stages of
President Bill Clinton’s reelection campaign and a poten-
tial legal hazard.Bill Clinton was determined to raise as much money
as possible for the 1996 presidential campaign, in
part because of the 1994 “Republican Revolution,”
in which Republicans gained a majority in both
houses of Congress. The victory was of such a magni-
tude as to foreshadow a likely defeat for Clinton in- Clinton decided to launch an ad campaign to
refurbish his image and brought on longtime friend
and consultant Dick Morris to run it. Morris esti-
mated the price as at least $1 million per week, which
inevitably would increase later, and did not include
any other campaign expenses; he later estimated the
total campaign cost at $300 million and also esti-
mated that one-third of Clinton’s public schedule, at
least while in the United States, involved raising
funds.
Misuse of the White House Technically, public
property such as the White House is not supposed to
be used for purely political purposes. In reality, it can
be hard to separate policy from politics, and this is
made even more difficult because the White House
is also the president’s official residence. As Clinton
desperately sought money, the White House also be-
came a cash cow for his campaign. White House cof-
fees were used as fund-raisers, and the Lincoln Bed-
room, the White House’s guest room, was used
similarly. Morris later identified seventeen individu-
als and four couples who contributed $100,000 or
more and attended coffees, as well as thirty-eight in-
dividuals and five couples who contributed $100,000142 Campaign finance scandal The Nineties in America