Washington Post on Gay Republicans

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 4:39pm

Here's the new phrase: "Closet Tolerant"--it mean it's okay to be gay as long as you keep you damn mouth shut and vote with the party.

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Hill Republicans Air Out the Closet
Foley Scandal Points Up Acceptance And Anxieties of Gay Staffers

By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 20, 2006; C01

In October 1993, after the ban on gays in the military was replaced with a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, three Oklahoma congressmen said they wouldn't hire an openly gay person onto their staffs. Then-Rep. Jim Inhofe (R) told the Tulsa World: "I would not appoint a gay person in that type of leadership position."

That declaration sent a ripple of fear across a certain set on Capitol Hill. A small, bipartisan group of staffers huddled and formed the Lesbian and Gay Congressional Staff Association, which now has a confidential e-mail list of more than 200. And a frustrated aide contacted the Tulsa World and gave an anonymous interview.

I'm gay, he told the newspaper, and I'm on Inhofe's staff.

The aide was Kirk Fordham, former chief of staff for disgraced former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and a key player in the ongoing investigation of the page scandal, said Hill sources who requested anonymity because of the investigation.

In the 13 years since, even as gays have moved visibly into mainstream America, they hold a tenuous, complicated spot within the ranks of the GOP, whose earlier libertarian, live-and-let-live values have been ground down by the wedge issue of opposition to gay rights. And, even though an Inhofe staffer confirmed last week that his boss still maintains his employment ban, many gay men are key aides to Republican legislators, powerful silent partners in winning elections by pledging allegiance to religious "values voters" ever on the alert against "the homosexual agenda."

This dichotomy -- or hypocrisy, depending on who's doing the labeling -- has been forced out of the closet by the page scandal, just as surely as Foley.

"You have to separate the marketing from the reality. The reality is, these members are not homophobic. For the most part, they're using this marketing to play to our base and stay in power. They have to turn out the votes," said David Duncan, once a board member of the Lesbian and Gay Congressional Staff Association and a former top aide to Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio), who last week pleaded guilty to corruption charges linked to the Abramoff scandal.

Andrew Sullivan, the openly gay conservative columnist, calls the Republican leadership "closet-tolerant."

"They're tolerant of gay people but they have to keep quiet about it because their base would go crazy if they ever express it. That's the bottom line," Sullivan said. "They have this acute cognitive dissonance, which is a polite way of saying hypocrisy."

In their day-to-day dealings, even the most conservative Republicans can display an ease with normalizing relations with gay people. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) ranks No. 3 in Senate leadership and has likened homosexuality to bestiality. A rumor erupted in summer 2005 that his chief spokesman, Robert Traynham, was gay. When Traynham confirmed the rumor, Santorum promptly rushed to his defense, issuing a release calling his aide "a trusted friend . . . to me and my family."

After a breakup with his boyfriend, Duncan got "some relationship advice" from Ney over dinner at Morton's with other staffers. Ney told him "how difficult it is to find the right match," recalled Duncan.

At a State Department ceremony last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swore in Mark Dybul, the new global AIDS coordinator and an openly gay man. With Laura Bush and Dybul's partner, Jason Claire, looking on, Rice introduced Claire's mother as Dybul's "mother-in-law," a designation that made evangelical leaders howl in protest. "Morally provocative," chided Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, in a mass e-mail.

A Republican strategist who has served in several key positions during his 17-year career on the Hill said: "Most of these Congress members would be perfectly happy if they didn't have to vote on another gay issue. For some it is an issue. For some . But the truth is, a lot of members are more tolerant than their voting records would have you believe. Look at [Rep. Roy] Blunt [R-Mo.], [Rep. Eric] Cantor [R-Va.], [Rep. Adam] Putnam [R-Fla.]. They know gay people. They have gay friends. But they speak out against gay rights. They have to. That's where the votes are." All three voted to amend the Constitution to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman.

Like most gay Republican staffers interviewed for this article, the veteran strategist requested anonymity so he could speak freely about gays working within the GOP. Several Republican lawmakers declined to be interviewed about the subject, as did Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.

"You can't be a Republican and say that you're for gay rights on the Hill," the veteran strategist said. "You can say it behind closed doors. But you can't say it in public." That principle may explain why no fellow Republicans have publicly argued with Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), a vocal opponent of gay marriage who is blocking President Bush's nomination of Judge Janet Neff to the federal bench because Neff once attended a commitment ceremony for a lesbian couple.

"To be gay is a political issue and the party has to take a political stand," the strategist said, explaining how he works within a party whose social policy is at odds with his own. The "issues that matter greatly to me" are national security and foreign policy, he said.

For years, he said, he has existed somewhere between "don't ask, don't tell" and "we're here, we're queer, get used to it."

"I don't hide the fact that I'm gay," he added, "but I don't let it define me either, politically or personally." But he finds it troubling, especially in light of the page scandal, that the party's most conservative voices speak so loudly against "the so-called homosexual agenda," and the more mainstream, moderate Republicans -- including the Congress members that he's worked for -- take the conservatives' cue.

Some gay Republicans, such as Duncan, the former Ney staffer, say "it's all just politics."

"My boss's public position didn't bother me at all. If that's the sacrifice that I have to make to keep my party in power, so be it," said Duncan, who now is a law student at George Mason University.

Others, such as the veteran strategist, take it more personally. "Does it gnaw on me? Yes. Is it painful sometimes? Yes. How can I stand it? Well, you can't make change from the outside," he said.

Sullivan, for one, has called for an end to this compartmentalizing. The GOP has been riding two horses for too long, he said, "relying on gays to staff and support" them "while relying upon gay-baiting" to win elections, he said. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out there's a conflict there," he added, "and now is as good as time as any to get off one horse -- the gay-baiting one."

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Hill Republicans Air Out the Closet

[Liverpool]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 4:47pm

Have I mentioned that gay republicans make me want to cry. In the sense of weeping for humanity.



ETA

ok, that's not fair, cause really, all republicans make me weep for humanity. Updated On: 10/20/06 at 04:47 PM

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 5:38pm

why is this black or white?

true republicans and conservatives have nothing to do with 'moral' issues. those that embodied the first conservatives or republicans in this country would be appalled at what it's become. conservative did not mean religious or antigay or any of that.

so it isn't ridiculous for a gay person to be republican or conservative. it's just hard for them that the party has been hijacked by the religious right and by 'republicans' and 'conservatives' who are executing economic and federal policies that go against what conservative once meant.

ironically, clinton was much more conservative than bush.

[mejusthavingfun]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 5:49pm

jrb-actor - you are right on the money. Most politicians are hypocrites. You know why? They often preach about equality, civil rights and so forth. There is no equality here. Until Hillary Clinton, John Kerry or any of them standup for my civil rights they have failed me.

Why is it 2006 and I do not have the same rights as my own brother? Why are Gay republicans an issue? Democrats hiding from gay marriage issues are bigger hypocrites IMO. At least Republicans stand by their oppression. Civil liberties are non-negotiable!

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 10/20/06 at 6:25pm

well that's not what I was talking about, but you do bring up a good point. my rationale (as I bet more people have to make them these days, rep or dem) is that most dems would allow progress where as most gops are actively trying to halt progress). and I firmly believe bill clinton was making compromises and preventing harsher legislature by signing dadt and doma. it was, imho, for our benefit knowing what that congress would have done if he hadn't.

what I was saying was that clinton was more of a true conservative than shrubya as it pertains to economics and government intervention into our lives.