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Raising the stakes
California Democrats and Republicans unite to support a constitutional amendment allowing Indian tribes to run casinos.
By Claudia Buck
[08/30/99]

A question of faith
Why religion-based social help, the pet issue of Al Gore and George W. Bush, may be the next president's first broken promise.
By Michael Kress
[08/30/99]

With conservatives like these, who needs liberals?
By signing on to the war on Hollywood, the right has embraced another bad idea from the left.
By David Horowitz
[08/30/99]

Delta team at Waco?
A former CIA official says Army commandos played a role in the deadly standoff.
By Jeff Stein
[08/28/99]

Texas judge rules against Bush
A motion to force Eliza May to give a deposition in the Texas "Formaldegate" matter was rejected.
By Robert Bryce
[08/27/99]

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May admits he has probably violated the "don't tell" part of the policy, which resulted in the discharge of more than 1,000 gay men and women from the armed forces last year, because he has certainly told -- and told and told and told. But May came out as openly gay not as an Army reserve officer, but as a Republican candidate for the Arizona Legislature, where he took office last January.

His openness has led to an Army Reserve investigation -- and a new status as national media star. The Service Members Legal Defense Fund has taken his case, and his plight has been featured in media coast to coast. "I just did a press conference with CNN, all the networks, probably 20 reporters," he told me from New York, where he was attending a weekend meeting of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group. He'd been on MSNBC and "Good Morning America" already, but had to turn down other offers because he'd promised Larry King an exclusive on Monday night.

May's being gay is not news. The Arizona Mormon, who is 27, ran for the Legislature in 1996. He was outed by the local Log Cabin Republicans during the campaign. He lost the race but ran again in 1998, and won, this time as an openly gay candidate.

Earlier, while in college, he had served in the Navy and Army ROTC. In 1993, after graduation, he was called to active duty in the Army -- about the same time that "don't ask, don't tell" was implemented. He kept his mouth shut about his homosexuality, which up till then he'd mentioned only to a few family members and close friends. May's service ended in 1995, though he remained eligible to be called up in a military crisis.

A year later, he was outed during his campaign for the Legislature. And since his election, he has talked openly about his homosexuality. As a freshman lawmaker in Arizona's conservative Legislature -- and its first openly gay Republican -- he caused a small uproar when he put a Tinky Winky doll on his desk on the House floor. A member of the GOP leadership staff gently suggested it wasn't such a good idea to decorate that way, so May removed the doll. (Actually, it was removed for him by some snarky Democrats, who doll-napped Tinky and returned him days later, with a cigarette in his mouth. May didn't bother to put the doll back on his desk.)

Sort of "don't ask, don't tell," civilian-style.

Earlier this year he took a leading role fighting social conservatives who were trying to outlaw health benefits to same-sex partners, with arguments comparing homosexuality to cannibalism, and declaring that the life expectancy of a gay man is 42. May called their efforts "an attack on my family, an attack on my freedom. This Legislature takes my gay tax dollars and my gay tax dollars spend the same as your straight tax dollars."

Shortly after that impassioned speech, May got a letter in the mail. The crisis in the Balkans was escalating, and Uncle Sam wanted him back.

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