ample, canceled the AX attack aircraft program in
1993, while the Pentagon stretched out the interser-
vice V-22 aircraft program over several years to re-
duce its costs.
Impact The impact of diminished defense spend-
ing in the 1990’s depends on which critic is offering
an opinion. To liberals, lower defense spending
meant more money for social programs and in-
creased attention to important internal American is-
sues. To conservatives, the decline of defense spend-
ing made America vulnerable, especially to the new
threats that emerged in the twenty-first century.
Further Reading
Ippolito, Dennis S.Blunting the Sword: Budget Policy
and the Future of Defense. Washington, D.C.: Na-
tional Defense University, 1994. Assessing the first
budget-cutting efforts of the Clinton administra-
tion, Ippolito opines that defense cutting up to
1994 was sufficient, but warns against future cuts.
Kaufmann, William W.Assessing the Base Force: How
Much Is Too Much?Washington, D.C.: Brookings
Institution, 1992. A conservative commentary on
defense spending and the end of the Cold War.
Kaufmann cautions against excessive cuts to the
military, which could prove expensive to rebuild
later, that might threaten U.S. security.
Weidenbaum, Murray L.Small Wars, Big Defense:
Paying for the Militar y After the Cold War. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1992. A liberal commen-
tary on defense spending and the end of the Cold
War. Weidenbaum argues that America needs to
reassess its concept of “defense” in an era where
major enemies no longer exist.
Steven J. Ramold
See also Balanced Budget Act of 1997; Bosnia con-
flict; Bush, George H. W.; Clinton, Bill; Cold War,
end of; Don’t ask, don’t tell; Foreign policy of the
United States.
Defense of Marriage Act of
1996
Definition A federal law that quarantined same-
sex marriages to individual states that allowed
them
Date Enacted on September 21, 1996
The act was a major national victor y for cultural conserva-
tives attempting to prevent the spread of same-sex marriage.
Few issues are as perpetually contentious in Ameri-
can society as the right for homosexuals to marry
one another. The Defense of Marriage Act of 1996
(DOMA) could be viewed as the final chapter in a
long debate surrounding same-sex marriage to that
point in time. After all, according to the act, no state
has to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in
another state, and further, the federal government
will not recognize same-sex marriages. However, like
other issues in constitutional law, the DOMA did not
so much close the book on the debate as start a new
chapter on it.
The DOMA was overwhelmingly passed by the
Republican-controlled legislature of 1996. It was
passed in a political climate of ascending Christian
evangelism, a precipitous decline in moderate cul-
tural voices in government, and a shift in the South
from long-held Democratic Party control to firm Re-
publican Party control. Indeed, the act cannot be
viewed in the vacuum of the gay rights movement
and its stalwart oppositional movement but must be
understood as part of a broader movement of cul-
tural conservatism. The act is very much cut from
the same cloth as legislation concerning abortion,
tough-on-crime laws, and church-and-state issues:
so-called morality politics. There is little room for
political compromise when each side comes to the
table with a stubborn notion of either biblical truth
or scientific absolutism. Clashes over such morality
issues are fierce, and generally victory goes to those
with the greatest raw numbers on a particular vote.
In 1996, advocates of the act saw it as a codifica-
tion of what had already been an established na-
tional tradition for centuries: that marriage is be-
tween one man and one woman. Conversely,
proponents of same-sex marriage saw the act as an
affront to the minority rights of a legitimate segment
of American society. One thing is certain, however,
given the policy climate leading up to the passage of
the DOMA and the continued debate about same-246 Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 The Nineties in America