by Rex Wockner
[story filed Aug. 5, 2000]
PHILADELPHIA
-- It was a kinder, gentler, more inclusive
Republican National
Convention -- so polished that more than one
commentator
called it an "infomercial." In the media tents,
everyone professed
to be bored.
Did the GOP reach out to gays? Well, yes and no.
On the one hand,
the party platform denounces gay rights, gay Boy
Scouts, gay
marriage and gay adoption. However, much of that
language was
re-inserted by hardline right-wingers after
moderates had
succeeded in removing it with George W. Bush's
blessing.
On the other
hand, Bush and the GOP alienated some right-wingers
by sending the
GOP's only openly gay congressman, Rep. Jim Kolbe
of Arizona,
to the convention podium in prime time to speak on
trade issues.
Several Texas delegates were so offended that they
took off their
cowboy hats, placed them over their hearts, bowed
their heads
and prayed.
"We were praying
for Kolbe, for this nation, for Governor Bush,"
said Ernest
Murry of San Marcos, Tex. "We made a firm stand in
this party as
far as lifestyles."
Fundamentalist
Christian spokesman Pat Robertson refused to
denounce Kolbe's
appearance, however.
"We want to help
gay people and encourage them to succeed," he
said. "And so
here's a man who succeeded as a congressman and ...
I'm for free
trade so I suppose that his message will resonate
with the convention.
Am I going to stand there with a placard to
say keep him
off the program? No way. It's just one of those
things. This
is a decision of the Bush campaign. They don't want
anybody in the
Democratic party to criticize them that they're
not inclusive."
Fundamentalist
Christian spokesman Jerry Falwell added: "This is
a political
party, not a church. ... Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe, who
is homosexual,
gave an excellent speech on the GOP's trade
efforts. It
would be fruitless for conservative Christians to
turn a deaf
ear to his words simply because we disagree with his
sexual predilection."
Earlier in the
day at a gay reception, Kolbe joked to a throng of
reporters: "I
never knew there was such an interest in trade by
the media. ...
I think it sends a real message of inclusiveness
that Governor
Bush would select me since I have been a McCain
supporter before."
After his convention
address, Kolbe commented, "Including
somebody like
myself who is gay is just one more indication that
the party is
reaching out to everybody, and that's what it should
be doing."
MARY MATALIN
The GOP also
sent Republican strategist Mary Matalin of CNN's
Crossfire program
around town with a message of Republican gay
inclusiveness.
Following a Log
Cabin Republicans/Gay & Lesbian Victory
Fund/Human Rights
Campaign reception for 300 Republican politicos
and gay delegates
and activists, Matalin told this reporter: "The
epiphany for
me is that people have some objection to
homosexuality.
They say it somehow hurts the traditional family.
How? I'm advocating
what I know to be the conservative
philosophy.
If you respect the individual, if you're about
individual liberties
and freedoms and all that stuff, you can't
say, 'Except
for that group or except for that person.' It's just
so unjust and
so unfair and so illogical. Illogic and unfairness
offend me."
Matalin added
that she favors gay marriage "because it's
logical."
"You want to
reduce promiscuity, you want to enhance stability --
duh, marriage,
OK?" she said.
Gays have felt
unwelcome in the Republican party, Matalin said,
because "we
shut them out. We turned out our hearts. That can
happen no more
-- that the loud voice of a few suffocates the big
voice of the
many," she said. "Our gathering here [at this
reception] does
mark, hopefully permanently, the end of the
culture-wars
rhetoric."
Several gay-friendly
Republicans made stops at gay events during
the week. U.S.
Rep. Connie Morelia of Maryland told one
gathering, "I'm
a supporter of an inclusive Republican party."
U.S. Rep. Tom
Campbell of California said, "It is easy to stand
up for the principle
that government should not discriminate on
the basis of
orientation."
U.S. Sen. Jim
Jeffords of Vermont said: "I'm from Vermont so I
don't really
need to say anything more than that. Vermont has
said, under
our common-benefits provision, that everyone is
entitled to
the protection of the law that have a lasting
relationship
and want to enjoy life together."
Some delegates
also did not hesitate to voice support for gays.
Sharon Greenhouse
of Boca Raton, Fla., told this reporter: "Only
a few Republicans
are right-wing extremists. I am a Republican
because of my
basic beliefs in the party. I'm a fiscal
conservative
and a social moderate. Being a Republican is also
allowing everyone
to come into the party. It's a big tent. I wish
more would realize
that."
Indeed, there
were 19 openly gay delegates this year, up from six
in 1996 and
two in 1992.
"This convention
makes it dramatically clear that we are inside
the tent," said
Log Cabin spokesman Kevin Ivers.
MARY CHENEY
One gay Republican
who's certainly inside is vice-presidential
nominee Dick
Cheney's daughter Mary.
She attended
the convention and appeared on stage with the
candidates'
families following Bush's acceptance speech the final
evening. It
was not immediately clear if her life partner,
Heather Poe,
was present. Mary Cheney declined all requests for
interviews.
On the convention's
final day, there were a smattering of
unconfirmed
reports that Mary Cheney will formally join the
Cheney campaign
staff.
"We understand
they [Dick and Mary Cheney] love each other very
much," said
Human Rights Campaign (HRC) spokesman David Smith.
"She often times
goes on trips with him and they're very close.
Both her parents
have known that she's gay since the early 90s.
She lives with
her partner and I understand her and her partner
go over to the
home quite often, they get along as a family. The
parents are
comfortable with it and so is she.
"The crux of
it is, it's going to focus attention on Bush's anti-
gay policy positions,
and Cheney is going to look quite mean if
he comes out
and says: 'Yeah, I support a law that bans my
daughter from
adopting a child. I don't support a law that would
protect my daughter
from discrimination,'" Smith said.
HRC Executive
Director Elizabeth Birch added: "Mary Cheney is a
bright and articulate
woman. She is highly impressive. The issue
will be whether
she is locked away in a vault in terms of her
public-policy
positions that are well-known."
Until recently,
Cheney worked for the Coors brewery as the head
of its gay and
lesbian outreach efforts.
"I talked to
her," Birch said. "I told her we wanted to be
supportive and
that I felt that merely directing all inquiries to
the campaign
was not going to work for very long because this is
a radar-jamming
moment where with someone with a record like Dick
Cheney's, it
is remarkable and interesting that he has such a
dynamic daughter.
She cut her teeth on advocating for gay
Americans as
consumers. She's a quasi-public figure. The press
will want to
write about that."
Dick Cheney's
record on gay issues includes supporting the
military gay
ban and voting against the Hate Crimes Statistics
Act in 1988
as a congressman. George W. Bush is on record
opposing job
protections for gay people and gay adoption. He
scuttled hate-crime
legislation in Texas and has vowed to abolish
the position
of White House liaison to the gay community.
In an interview
with journalist Cokie Roberts, Dick Cheney's
wife, Lynne,
seemingly attempted to shove Mary back in the
closet. When
Roberts said Mary is an open lesbian, Lynne shot
back: "Mary
has never declared such a thing. I would like to say
that I'm appalled
at the media interest in one of my daughters. I
have two wonderful
daughters. I love them very much. They are
bright; they
are hard-working; they are decent. And I simply am
not going to
talk about their personal lives. And I'm surprised,
Cokie, that
even you would want to bring it up on this program."
But Mary has
declared such a thing, repeatedly. For instance, she
told Girlfriends
magazine, "The reason I came to work here [at
Coors] is because
I knew several other lesbians who were very
happy here."
Strategist Matalin
acknowledged Mary Cheney's sexual orientation
and told this
reporter: "Mary Cheney knows how to speak
knowledgeably,
reasonably, calmly and confidently on gay issues
and [she] has.
I hope she does. I don't know what her demands for
privacy will
be."
THE GRAND DICHOTOMY
Despite the many
gay firsts at this year's convention, HRC's
Smith said gays
still would be unwise to vote for Bush and
Cheney.
"The Republican
Party is changing slowly but somewhat surely," he
said. "But we're
definitely concerned about George Bush's anti-
gay policy positions
that he's articulated as governor of Texas
and during the
primaries. We feel that he obviously would not be
a good choice
for president. We're going to actively work against
him."
HRC's Birch added:
"The story for this convention is the grand
dichotomy. Here
you have a presidential candidate who finally has
one meeting
with a group of gay Republicans, and yet there's this
restoration
of mean-spirited, out-of-date, dinosaur [anti-gay]
language in
the platform. For an institution that is trying to
argue that its
edges are softening and that it is a larger, wider
tent, it's looking
more like a pup tent of exclusion, when you
look only at
the platform."
Following his
April meeting with gays, Bush said: "The meeting
was a wide-ranging
discussion on issues. I'm a better person for
the meeting.
I enjoyed it. I welcome gay Americans into my
campaign.
"I want the Republicans,
conservative Republicans, to understand
we judge people
based upon their heart and soul, that's what the
campaign is
about," he said. "And while we disagree on gay
marriage, for
example, we agree on a lot of other issues and it's
important for
people to hear that. ... These are individuals
who've got interesting
stories to tell and it's important for the
next president
to listen to people's real-life stories. These are
people from
our neighborhoods, people with whom all of us went to
school, people
who generally care about America, and I appreciate
them sharing
their stories with me. And I'm mindful that we're
all God's children."
In the final
analysis, the ongoing assimilation of gays and
lesbians into
the American mainstream and the many pro-gay
positions of
the Democratic party clearly have steered the
Republican party
toward a less-hostile relationship with the gay
and lesbian
community. The advances this year have been real and
tangible.
If the ball keeps
bouncing in the same direction -- as all
indicators suggest
-- it should not be too terribly long before
the Republicans
throw in the towel and treat homosexuals the same
as they do racial,
ethnic and religious minorities. The signposts
were many in
Philly that this is exactly where the GOP is headed.