Impeachment
On December 19, 1998 Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for both perjury and obstruction of justice. The Senate acquitted him and he was not removed from office. The charges were brought forth due to the suspicion that Clinton had lied under oath regarding an alleged extra-marital affair. While under oath he dismissed the accusations but months later admitted that he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky. This is an important event in Clinton's presidency because it changes what the public thinks of him but the acquittal by the Senate is also significant because, when looking at the votes, a significant number of the Senators voted strictly with their party (if they were a Democrat they voted 'not guilty' and if they were a Republican they voted 'guilty') which shows that hearing impeachment cases in Congress will result in a more biased verdict due to the fact that they are all affiliated with a political party.
Appointment Choices
Bill Clinton was the first president to appoint openly homosexual men and women. He tried to appoint more than 150 gays and lesbians, James C. Hormel being the most well-known. James Hormel was the U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg which may seem like an insignificant appointment of all the available positions in our government, but the symbolic meaning to his job has brought hope for the future of gays in politics. This was important to his presidency because it is something that he is well-known for, but it was also an important precedent to set for future presidents, that homosexuals and heterosexuals have the same abilities to run our government.
Don't Ask Don't Tell
The "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy went into effect on December 21, 1993 and made it so that homosexuals could be a part of the military as long as they didn't allow anyone to know their sexual preference. I view this policy as something that shows America was trying to accept homosexuality but it just did not know how yet. Some people say this is to shame homosexuals and exclude them but in reality that policy had always been that homosexuality was grounds for discharge from the military and this was just a step toward being accepting. This event shows a period of change in America; being gay is slowly becoming something that is more accepted in America and this one event can symbolize that slow but sure process.