thing You Need to Know to Educate Your Child at
Home.Avon, Mass.: Adams Media, 2006. A basic
how-to book for homeschoolers.
Mur, Cindy, ed.Home Schooling. San Diego, Calif.:
Greenhaven Press, 2003. Presents discussions
by scholars on the issues surrounding home-
schooling.
Marcia J. Weiss
See also Educate America Act of 1994; Education
in Canada; Education in the United States; Mozart
effect; Religion and spirituality in the United States;
School violence; Year-round schools.
Homosexuality and gay rights
Definition Same-sex relationships and the
struggle for legal and cultural acceptance of
gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people
The gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) com-
munity suffered from hate crimes in the 1990’s, even as the
debate over gay rights developed an intense focus on the mil-
itar y and same-sex marriage.
The 1990’s saw a move toward greater civil rights ac-
tivism in the GLBT community. Where the 1970’s
were considered an era of coming out, and the
1980’s were taken up largely by the response to ac-
quired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), the
1990’s brought both opportunities and tragedies to
draw homosexual civil rights into the forefront of na-
tional attention. In the military, the United States
adopted the disastrous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy,
while Canada allowed homosexuals to openly join its
military. Canada extended its Human Rights Act to
include homosexuals, while three hate crimes
against gays in the United States served to draw at-
tention to the need for more inclusive hate crime
laws. Also, same-sex couples in both countries began
pushing for the right to marry.
The Military Throughout his presidential cam-
paign, Bill Clinton promised gay rights groups that,
if elected, he would help improve the status of gays
in the military. However, once he was in office, he
immediately encountered pressure and had to de-
velop a compromise policy that would be accepted
by both Democrats and Republicans. The plan he
unveiled in 1992 was labeled “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Essentially, it stated that a person’s sexual orienta-
tion was private business, forbade anyone in the mili-
tary from asking another’s sexual orientation, and
instructed people in the armed forces not to reveal
their sexual orientation. The rationalization behind
the campaign was that gays could not be persecuted
or evicted from the military if nobody knew they
were gay. However, in practice, the policy served to
push gays in the armed forces even further into the
closet. Complaining to a superior officer about be-
ing harassed about one’s sexual orientation was tan-
tamount to admitting homosexuality, which invited
the military ban. Two gay men were murdered in the
military before the new policy’s consequences be-
came obvious to politicians.
In the same year that Clinton unveiled “don’t
ask, don’t tell” in the United States, Canada lifted
its military ban, allowing homosexuals to serve
openly in the Canadian Forces. The move did not
precipitate any morale loss or other problems for
the country, heavily undermining some key argu-
ments by the U.S. military. Indeed, the quiet suc-
cess served as a spearhead for gay rights groups in
the United States.Hate Crimes and Civil Rights The 1990’s also saw
hate crimes committed against gays. Three very pub-
lic cases highlight the issues raised. In 1992, U.S.
Navy airman apprentice Terry Helvey beat his col-
league Allen Schindler to death because Schindler
was gay. Barry Winchell, a private in the Army, was
murdered in 1999 by fellow recruit Calvin Glover fol-
lowing harassment about his sexual orientation that
Winchell feared to report to his superior officers.
Both military cases had similar components. Schin-
dler and Winchell had both been harassed for their
sexual orientation, and both feared repercussions if
they reported the problems to superior officers.
Winchell’s death was a spearhead for Clinton to ask
Congress to review “don’t ask, don’t tell,” but the
policy remains in place.
The third situation involved the murder of col-
lege student Matthew Shepard in 1998. Two strang-
ers, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney, mur-
dered Shepard for being gay. Shepard met his killers
at the Fireside Lounge in Laramie, Wyoming, then
drove away with them because he needed a ride, un-
aware that they were targeting a gay man and intend-
ing to rob him. They pistol-whipped Shepard and
left him tied to a fence. A cyclist found Shepard byThe Nineties in America Homosexuality and gay rights 431