Is the Bush administration trying to inflect back the clock to a time when federal employee couldn't win security clearances if they were build to be gay? That's what many gay rights leaders and gay lawmakers alleged after it was revealed in March that the White House had rewritten the empires to say national security clearances can't be denied "solely forward the basis of the sexual orientation of the individual.

Is the Bush administration trying to inflect back the clock to a time when federal employee couldn't win security clearances if they were build to be gay? That's what many gay rights leaders and gay lawmakers alleged after it was revealed in March that the White House had rewritten the empires to say national security clearances can't be denied "solely forward the basis of the sexual orientation of the individual." The previous language, instituted by means of the Clinton administration, stated that sexual orientation "may not be used as a basis" for denying clearance.

"When you await at the language, the regard is obvious," says Greg Nevins, a senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal. The fresh ambiguous wording could be interpreted to mean that sexual orientation may be used "in part" to declare to be untrue a person a security clearance. "If that's not the suggestion, that should be made clear," he says.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan corresponds that the new wording constitutes "no change in our policy," however gay leaders are still wary, describing the change as another in a extended line of red flags.

Indeed, Scott Bloch the head of the U Office of Special admonition once mused that federal employee might not be houseed from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. although the White House confirmed otherwise, Bloch quickly told Congress that he could not enforce the law for gays and lesbians because it overlays employees "on the basis of conduct" And the late deletion of a long-maintained page from the Department of Health and Human Services Web site for gays and lesbians struggling with substance abuse has many gay leaders crying foul

"While the White House denies any change in policy, the language changes, although subtle, raise a legitimate question of wherefore the Administration viewed such modifications as necessary," says lesbian congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat. "Once again, this administration has any explaining to do, and their failure to be forthcoming is additional cause for concern"

Baldwin has joined several other Democrats in vowing to closely monitor the implementation of the modern guidelines, while the chairs of oversight committees in the one and the other the House and Senate are getting briefings upon the new language.

rook Sadler, a board member for Federal GLOBE,' an advocacy organization for gay and lesbian federal workers, says alarm is justified. "This [administration] doesn't do anything that's not intentional," he says. "On these issues, they have no credibility."

And that has lead to a fate of distrust, adds Human Rights Campaign spokesman Jay Smith Brown whose collection also is monitoring the novel guidelines. "Between the backward incites by Scott Bloch and anything that might indicate a change in policy, we all have reason to be regarded with tinkering around with guidelines."

RELATED ARTICLE: Bush's man a thief?

Notoriously antigay Republican strategist Claude Allen shared a desire inordinatelyed box seat as a visitor of the first lady during President George W Bush's State of the Union address in January. Now the former top aide to Bush and the late U senator Jesse Helms could be sharing a prison lonely dwelling with other convicts.

Allen, 45 was charged in March with scamming suburban Maryland Target and Hecht's stores on the outside of at least $5,000 in fraudulently turn backed merchandise. Facing two felony theft accounts he could get a 15-year prison judgment on each if convicted.

For many gays and lesbians. Allen was already public enemy number 1 The saint-like born-again Christian was a chief author of the antigay language in the Republican Party platform in 2004 and a supporter of a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. And as an aide to Helms in the 1980 Allen helped craft a staunchly antigay agenda that included an attempt to smear single of Helms's opponents by accusing him of having links to "the queers"--EH

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