Cheney defends exclusion of gays

U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney restated his support for the military's policy of excluding gays and lesbians from the armed forces yesterday during a question and answer session on campus. "I have operated on the assumption that people's private lives are their own businesses," Cheney said in answering a question from a member of the packed house of almost 600 in the Medical Education Building's Dunlop Auditorium. The question and answer session came after Cheney delivered a half-hour talk on the military's role in the "New World Order." Although Cheney said he does not consider gays and lesbians a security threat, he said that "the gay lifestyle is incompatible with military service." Three members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Alliance gave out flyers outside the entrance to Dunlop, which stated their opposition to discrimination against gays in the military and encouraged the University to kick the two Reserve Officer Training Corps units off campus. Cheney did not discuss this issue in his prepared speech, instead focusing on U.S. efforts to cut back its defense budget and stressing that reductions should be made gradually. Cheney said major changes in the world, like the spread of democracy in eastern Europe, "would not have occurred as they did without United States military capability." Cheney went on to say that as a result of these changes, the federal government is scaling down the armed forces. "We are already engaged in one of the most massive military reductions in history," said Cheney. He pointed to current initiatives to end ROTC programs on over 50 campuses and to close 300 military bases, including the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. But Cheney said he was wary of making too many cuts in the military too quickly. "My friends on Capitol Hill are crying, 'Cut more. Cut faster. Cut deeper,' " Cheney said. "The next time we go to war we'll find ourselves as unprepared as we were in 1950." The audience was very receptive of Cheney's speech, giving him standing ovations when he was introduced and before he left. "I haven't had a reception like that since I gave up politics," Cheney said. "I thought his 30 minute speech was pretty much what I expected to hear -- we can't cut back as much as Congress wants, and 'yea' for the Persian Gulf War," College senior Rubin Aronin said. "I enjoyed the speech. I was glad I got to get in." Several students had complained that the speech was closed to non-Wharton students, but a videotape of the session will be available in the audio-visual room of Steinberg-Dietrich in several days, according to Wharton spokesperson Chris Hardwick. After his speech, Cheney fielded questions on several topics, such as future spending on technology and U.S. policy in Europe, Japan and Africa. Cheney called technology "vital" and said that cuts in technological research will not be proportional to the other cuts made in the military. Cheney also said that Japan will increase its economic contribution to its own defense, but will not build on its current military strength. He said that although the U.S. force in Africa is smaller than it has been in the past, "We are prepared to help when called upon to help." Cheney said that he supported a European military alliance as long as it would not undercut NATO. "I would have liked the question and answers to have gone longer," Aronin said. "There really weren't any hard questions [other than the ROTC question]." "I thought he was a straight shooter. I was pleasantly surprised," said Wharton graduate student Chris Hurff. The Progressive Student Alliance staged a small rally on College Green before Cheney's speech to protest the University's use of Pentagon funds in building the planned Institute of Advanced Science and Technology. Approximately 50 students watched a brief skit in which the grim reaper presided over a wedding between the University and the Pentagon.

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