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The quiet crusader: Stephen Herbits has worked for every Republican president since Richard Nixon. Now the openly gay Defense Department insider—who opposes "don't ask, don't tell"—is fighting for gay rights in Florida's Miami-Dade County - People
Advocate, The, July 23, 2002 by Chris Bull
Stephen Herbits wasn't surprised to hear his old friend Donald Rumsfeld on the other end of the phone line. The newly appointed secretary of Defense was calling in January 2001 to enlist Herbits in a familiar role: overseeing Pentagon hiring in the Bush administration. It was a task that Herbits, who has known Rumsfeld for more than 30 years, has performed for every Republican president since Richard Nixon.
Herbits, 60, quietly agreed to a 120-day consultancy with the Defense Department while looking forward to returning to the peaceful anonymity of his semiretirement in Miami Beach, Fla. But before he even had a chance to miss his sun-drenched condo and its view of the city skyline, Herbits found himself embroiled in a political fire-storm over gay appointees to the Bush administration.
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Lou Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, called the appointment of the former Seagram executive a "slap in the face to our [military] servicemen and to Congress." Robert Maginnis, the Family Research Council's vice president for national security and foreign policy, declared it "inappropriate" for the Pentagon to hire Herbits, who opposes the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, to "vet key people who will run the Pentagon." Gay Republicans, meanwhile, heralded his hiring as proof that the Bush administration would not use sexual orientation as a bar to employment.
Nevertheless, Herbits says today, "I was treated with nothing but respect at the Pentagon. After all, I was known around the building as a professional for the work I did. You wouldn't believe the number of very powerful military and civilian officials who came up to me to tell me how wrong the religious right was to be undertaking this campaign against me."
In this time of war, Herbits's experience provides a rare insider's glimpse of the current Pentagon brass's attitude toward gay and lesbian civilian employees and the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
This is the first time Herbits has agreed to talk about being targeted by the right wing as a gay Defense Department official. A five-year Florida resident, Herbits has granted the interview because he believes it's important that he also speak out in support of the current campaign against a September ballot measure in Florida's Miami-Dade County. The measure would repeal the county's ban on antigay discrimination, passed in 1998.
Herbits did not hesitate to step out from behind his Defense Department desk to go to battle in Miami. He left a second consulting gig at the Bush administration's Pentagon--retooling personnel after last year's terrorism attacks--after the president's younger brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush, sided with antigay activists over a criminal investigation into the ballot measure's validity.
"I was so offended that I went to Rumsfeld and said, `I have to go home because I have to protect my kids from the president's brother.'" When a surprised Rumsfeld asked, "Your kids?" Herbits says he quickly explained, "Not my birth kids, but my kids who are struggling with their sexual orientation and have no one to take care of them. This referendum is not just about their rights--it seeks to strip away rights they already have. That's why it's urgent I return home." According to Herbits, Rumsfeld responded by saying "something to the effect of `I understand. I wish it wasn't like this.'"
Herbits says Jeb Bush, who is facing reelection and has not taken an official position on the ballot measure, has ignored his several requests for a meeting. "The governor will not respond to my communications," he says. "I don't think he knows or cares who I am. I think he's getting some bad advice"--in particular, Herbits says, from former congressman Charles Canady--"and pandering to the right wing." (Bush's press office in Tallahassee did not return calls for comment.)
But while Herbits proudly serves as an adviser to the No to Discrimination campaign being mounted by SAVE Dade, the nonprofit group opposing the referendum, he remains far more comfortable outside the public limelight. "You can get a lot more done behind the scenes, and you don't have to waste time kissing babies," he jokes.
Indeed, his resume reads like that of the quintessential Washington insider. After graduating from Tufts University in Massachusetts in 1964, he moved to Washington, D.C., to work on Capitol Hill, where he became what is now known as a "policy wonk."
He got to know Rumsfeld, then a three-term congressman from suburban Chicago, while researching his book How to End the Draft, which Rumsfeld endorsed. In 1972, Herbits graduated from Georgetown University Law School.
Two years later Rumsfeld was named President Ford's chief of staff, and Herbits wound up in the office of presidential personnel, which was charged with hiring more than 700 cabinet officials. It was there that Herbits realized the powerful role hiring practices can play in shaping political direction. "Personnel is, ultimately, policy," he says. "If there was a candidate I didn't like for some good reason, I could bring it up in the vetting process. If there was someone I really liked, I could push the person along."
