901

The 1994 midterm elections swept away the Democratic majorities in Congress and helped push Clinton to the right. Republicans claimed the 1994 election as a mandate for their conservative platform to end “government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money” and for “a Congress that respects the values and shares the faith of the American family.”

The most extreme antigovernment sentiment developed far from Washington in the form of grassroots armed militias that celebrated white Christian supremacy and reflected conservatives’ hostility to such diverse institutions as taxes and the United Nations. The militia movement grew after passage of new gun control legislation and after government agents stormed the headquarters of an armed religious cult in Waco, Texas, in April 1993, killing more than 80. On the second anniversary of that event, two militia sympathizers bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, taking 168 lives in the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history up to that point.

Bowing to conservative views on gay and lesbian rights and following the advice of military leaders, Clinton backed away from his promise to lift the ban on gays in the military. Cathleen Glover, an army specialist in Arabic who lost her position along with thousands of other soldiers, lamented, “The army preaches integrity, but asks you to lie to everyone around you.” In addition, in 1996, Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), prohibiting the federal government from recognizing state-licensed marriages between same-sex couples.

Yet attitudes and practices relating to homosexuality were changing rapidly, and the years following Clinton’s presidency would witness a number of significant victories for gay rights. By 2006, a majority of the largest companies provided health benefits to same-sex domestic partners and included sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies. A majority of states banned discrimination in public employment, and many of those laws extended to private employment, housing, and education. In 2015, the Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges declared by a vote of five to four that same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry, making gay marriage legal in all fifty states. The gay rights movement continued to fight other forms of discrimination, including job bias, which was still legal in many states, and worked for the rights of transgender people.

In the 1990s, hardening attitudes about poverty were reflected in Clinton’s handling of the New Deal program Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), popularly called welfare. Using the term welfare queen to stigmatize AFDC recipients, critics encouraged voters to blame poverty on the poor themselves and on welfare programs that fostered dependency, rather than on external circumstances such as lack of adequate jobs and child care. Many questioned why they should subsidize poor mothers when so many women worked outside the home. Defenders of AFDC doubted that the economy could provide sufficient jobs at decent wages and pointed to the much greater subsidies the government provided to other groups, such as large farmers, corporations, and homeowners. After vetoing two welfare bills, Clinton signed a less punitive measure as the 1996 election approached. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program replaced AFDC and limited welfare payments to two consecutive years, with a lifetime maximum of five years.

902

Clinton’s signature on the new law denied Republicans a partisan issue in the 1996 presidential campaign. The Republican Party also moved to the center, nominating Kansan Robert Dole, a World War II hero and former Senate majority leader. Clinton won 49 percent of the votes; 41 percent went to Dole and 9 percent to third-party candidate Ross Perot. Voters sent a Republican majority back to Congress.

In 1999, Clinton and Congress further deregulated the financial industry by repealing key aspects of the Glass-Steagall Act, passed during the New Deal to avoid another Great Depression. The Financial Services Modernization Act ended the separation between banking, securities, and insurance services, allowing financial institutions to engage in all three areas, practices that contributed to the severe financial meltdown of 2008.