In his opening remarks, Mr. Simpson noted, "Not one of us doesn't have someone close to us who is gay or lesbian." Then he invoked Mary Cheney, the daughter of the vice president, who attended the inauguration with her partner. Mr. Simpson said that after Ms. Cheney said she was a lesbian, her father, Dick Cheney, "protected and loved her as his very special, special daughter."
January 25, 2001
Wariness and Optimism Vie as Gays View New President
Former Senator Alan K. Simpson, a Republican Party elder, was the master of ceremonies last Friday at an inaugural breakfast of the Republican Unity Coalition, a new group that includes gay men and lesbians.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 — It was a first for gay Republicans. Last week's inaugural events included a breakfast honoring the Republican Unity Coalition, a new political group that includes gay members of the party. The master of ceremonies at Friday's celebration was a respected Republican elder, former Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, a close friend of both the Bush and Cheney families.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Simpson noted, "Not one of us doesn't have someone close to us who is gay or lesbian." Then he invoked Mary Cheney, the daughter of the vice president, who attended the inauguration with her partner. Mr. Simpson said that after Ms. Cheney said she was a lesbian, her father, Dick Cheney, "protected and loved her as his very special, special daughter."
But Ms. Cheney did not attend the breakfast. Nor did any top Bush campaign or administration officials. Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona, the one openly gay Republican member of Congress, was there.
Mr. Kolbe, though, declined to speak, only waving to the crowd.
In August, Mr. Kolbe had addressed the Republican convention in Philadelphia — another first for an openly gay man or woman. His speech was about international trade, not gay issues, but members of the Texas delegation protested by bowing their heads in prayer.
The breakfast illustrated both the promise and tensions in the relationship between the Republican Party and gay voters. While some gay Republicans emphasize the inclusive language of George W. Bush and hope his administration will include gays (two openly gay Republicans served on Bush transition teams), other equal-rights advocates are already bitterly denouncing the new administration for early moves they view as alarming, especially the attorney general nomination of John Ashcroft, who has said he views homosexuality as a sin.
"I get all kinds of e-mails telling me I'm working with the Nazis," said Kevin Ivers, a member of another gay group, Log Cabin Republicans, who attended the inauguration breakfast. "But we're optimistic that President Bush will keep a dialogue going with the community."
At this juncture in their fight to be accepted in their party, many gay Republicans have accepted a civilian variation of the military policy of "don't ask, don't tell" that accepts them in the name of inclusion, but prefers to put aside that they are gay and leaves unclear whether policies, especially civil rights enforcement and military codes, may change from the Clinton era. At the luncheon, Mr. Simpson promised a sexuality-blind approach, saying that "one fine day sexual orientation will be a nonissue in the Republican Party."
For some gay Democrats, however, the Republican goal of proclaiming that homosexuality does not matter raises the possibility of a rollback, not a step forward.
"The best I can hope for is that President Bush will do nothing," said David B. Mixner, a Democrat and Los Angeles gay-rights advocate.
With Bill Clinton, Mr. Mixner said, gays had a champion who broke new ground bringing gays into political life. He was the first to appoint openly gay and lesbian officials to his administration, naming more than 150 in his eight years in office. He issued executive orders, which are still enforced, explicitly prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in federal hiring practices and in granting government security clearances.
It is a legacy that the new administration has neither praised nor condemned. President Bush, who did not appoint any openly gay people to top state jobs as governor of Texas, has yet to decide whether he will review the orders protecting gay rights, Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, said, adding that Mr. Bush will not consider sexual orientation when choosing members of his administration.
"Every person in his administration will be treated with dignity and respect," Mr. McClellan said. "President Bush is reaching out to people of all walks of life who believe in common goals."
The nomination of Mr. Ashcroft, who, among other things, opposed the appointment of James C. Hormel, a gay businessman, to serve as ambassador to Luxembourg, has ignited sharp opposition from gay organizations. A report in The Washington Post today that as governor of Missouri Mr. Ashcroft asked a job candidate about his sexual orientation has also prompted criticism.
Some lawyers and advocates of civil rights for gays have also criticized Gale A. Norton, the interior secretary designate, for the way her office handled a case while she was Colorado attorney general. The case involved a challenge to a state constitutional amendment, approved by voters. That amendment tried to throw out state and local laws forbidding discrimination against gays. Ms. Norton's office defended the constitutionality of the amendment, which was struck down by the United States Supreme Court.
But Mr. Bush avoided another showdown with gay advocates by deciding against appointing Daniel R. Coats as secretary of defense. Mr. Coats, the former Republican senator from Indiana, wanted to ban gays from serving openly in the military and do away with the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The Bush administration did not want to sacrifice its first year in office fighting the same battle over equal rights for gays in the military that crippled Mr. Clinton, a Republican official said.
"We don't expect the Bush administration to open the military with a policy of nondiscrimination, but we hope the door remains open and that Secretary Rumsfeld is committed to uphold the law as it was intended in 1993," said Dixon Osburn, executive director of Service Members Legal Defense Network, a nonpartisan gay group.
Michael E. Colby, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, said that while he welcomed the inauguration breakfast and the formation of a new gay Republican group, he was afraid it was window dressing.
"I hope they really are advocates and do not continue to kowtow to a Bush administration that hasn't included gays and lesbians and hasn't answered any of the tough questions," Mr. Colby said.
But in November, gay men and lesbians inched closer to the Republican Party, giving Mr. Bush a quarter of their votes, more than any previous Republican presidential candidate, and helping the party hold on to Congress with 35 percent of their vote in Congressional elections, according to exit polls by Voter News Service.
"Politics is a game of addition, not subtraction," said Representative Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, the keynote speaker at the breakfast, who headed the Republicans' Congressional election campaign and actively sought the gay urban vote, inviting gay Republicans to his monthly strategy sessions.
"In the close presidential election," said Richard Tafel, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, "every vote counts and our votes mattered."
During the campaign, Mr. Bush refused to meet with gay Republicans until he was assured the nomination. Then he bypassed the better- established Log Cabin group and spoke instead to an ad hoc group of gay Republicans assembled by Charles Francis, a family friend from Texas who also organized the inaugural breakfast for gays. The ad hoc meeting fitted Mr. Bush's preference to view gays as fellow Republicans and not an interest group.
"George W. Bush walked out of our meeting and declared that he judges people by their heart and their character, one at a time," Mr. Francis said. "He said sexual preference won't matter for his appointments — we nailed that down."
In an interview with The New York Times shortly before he took office, Mr. Bush said, "I believe that someone's sexual orientation is their private business."
Even if Mr. Bush knew the sexual orientation of a job applicant, he said he would judge the person "upon whether or not the person could do the job" and whether the person shared a philosophy with him that was relevant "to the particular job that they were seeking."
During the presidential debates, Mr. Bush said he opposed gay marriages, saying "I think marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman."
In the vice-presidential debate, Mr. Cheney took a different stance, saying that "people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into," and that it was up to the states to decide whether to legalize gay marriages.
And though he was criticized by conservatives for those remarks, Mr. Cheney included the partner of his daughter Mary at his swearing-in as vice president last week, giving her a seat among family members.
As governor of Texas, Mr. Bush opposed gay marriages and gay adoptions and refused to back an effort to get rid of an old anti- sodomy law that made homosexual acts a crime.
He also let die legislation to impose special penalities on hate crimes against gays and racial minorities.
While social conservatives argue that civil rights for gay people amount to special treatment, the Wall Street wing of the party has already begun instituting equal rights and benefits for gays in the private sector.
Few Republicans better exemplify that change than Mary Cheney. Until last year, she was a corporate-relations manager for the Coors Brewing Company whose duties included convincing gay men and lesbians that Coors was not anti-gay and was offering its gay employees many of the benefits other corporations give them. She was an aide to her father in the campaign and now plans to attend business school in Colorado.
Coors sponsored last week's inaugural breakfast celebrating Republican gay men and lesbians, along with Microsoft, Verizon and Pfizer.
republicanunity.com |
