EVEN AS the perimeters of GLBT freedom have widened in the 21st century, the once vibrant community of activist gay Republicans finds itself in a crisis threatening its future viability in American political life. The shift in control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections has cost them whatever influence they may have had on Capitol Hill. Moreover, the increasing polarization of American politics along ideological and regional lines has marginalized socially liberal Republicans as the religious Right has tightened its grip on the GOP. In a time of political realignment, gay Republicans find themselves on the wrong side of trends in both the Republican Party and the GLBT community.
The emblem of sagging gay Republican fortunes is, of course, the reviled and friendless figure of Mark Foley, formerly a leading Republican congressman from South Florida. This supposed advocate for child protection fell from grace at a pace that would have made Icarus dizzy. Exposed weeks before the election after years of making lewd importunities to male congressional pages, Foley was forced to resign abruptly. As his lurid e-mails to high school students were read out on the nightly news, he found himself execrated by Democrats and Republicans, GLBT rights activists, and religious conservatives alike. His safely Republican seat in Congress fell to the Democrats in the November 7 elections, largely because his name remained on the ballot to dog the candidacy of the Republican selected to run in his place.
Foley’s attempts to shift blame for his actions, first by proclaiming himself an alcoholic and then as a victim of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, tempered none of the obloquy he faced. His belated decision to come out, through a spokesman, earned him no respect from the GLBT community, while it only heightened the bloodlust among anti-gay fundamentalists to drive anyone living “the homosexual lifestyle” out of a political party increasingly characterized by antipathy to GLBT equality.
There has been much debate in the wake of the Foley scandal about whether the Congressman was closeted. Many GLBT observers have pointed to his same-sex relationships—and general knowledge of his homosexuality in Washington—to argue that he deserves none of the sympathy appropriate for those trapped inside closets who muster the strength to come out proudly, whether early or later in life. In fact, he sought to have it both ways, pursuing his homosexual desires while refusing to affirm a gay identity for reasons of political expediency. Rumors of his homosexuality surfaced as he planned a campaign for the U.S. Senate in the 2004 elections. His response was to hold a press conference to denounce suggestions that he was gay as “revolting and unforgivable.” He made it a point of being photographed with attractive women at parties in West Palm Beach. He eschewed advocacy of anything that might be viewed as related to “the homosexual agenda” lest he draw suspicion to himself and risk antagonizing the religious conservatives whose influence in the GOP has ascended during the Bush presidency.
Foley made his Faustian bargain to advance and preserve his political career, and in this choice he was not alone. Since news of the scandal broke, much attention has focused on a shadowy network of gay Republican operatives on Capitol Hill, some of whom organized a covert supper club dubbed “the P Street Project.” These gay conservative insiders enjoyed significant power, access, and influence in the Republican Congress, but on terms that no self-respecting gay person could stomach. The trade-off for their being tolerated by the leadership of the party was acquiescence in the social conservative hegemony demanded by the party’s religious Right base. That is, to have power and a cramped personal space in which to lead a “homosexual lifestyle,” these Republican insiders had to foreswear efforts to improve the lot of gay people generally. They got to play the insider game, but at the cost of denying both themselves and their fellow GLBT people.
Gay Republicans like Foley and the players with the P Street Project stand in sharp contrast to GLBT people who went into the Republican Party out of libertarian conviction while remaining forthright and proud, seeking to move the party away from the influence of the religious Right. Activists like former Log Cabin Club President Patrick Guerriero were widely admired for their commitment to the struggle for equality and for staying true to themselves. They sought to build a Republican Party that consistently favored less government and opposed the selective social policy interventionism of the kind that the religious Right attempted in the Terry Schiavo case and that has been codified in the legal preference for traditional families over same-sex couples and their families. Principled gay Republicans refused to pursue conservative objectives like tax cuts and a pre-emptive national defense at the price of GLBT inequality, making very different choices than did the Mark Foleys of the world. Guerriero’s Log Cabin Club refused to endorse George Bush’s re-election after he demagogued the issue of same-sex marriage in 2004. (At the same time, it should be pointed out that Mark Foley was no Rev. Ted Haggard, who was a closeted crusader for GLBT inequality.)
In a telling sign of the times, Pat Guerriero has headed for the hills, both literally and figuratively. In September 2006, in the midst of the midterm election cycle, he left Washington to head the Gill Foundation Action Fund in Denver, Colorado, having decided to carry on his work for GLBT equality through a less partisan channel. His departure left the Log Cabin Club without a strong presence and voice while the Foley scandal dominated the national news and spurred fears of an anti-gay witch-hunt on Capitol Hill.
Guerriero’s resignation was no isolated development. David Catania, first openly gay member of the Washington, D.C., City Council, left the Republican Party over its hostility to marriage equality and won re-election in 2006 as an independent. Arizona, which just became the first state to reject a same-sex marriage ban at the polls, once boasted three openly gay Republican elected officials, including former Tempe Mayor Neil Giuliano, who now leads the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Representative Jim Kolbe’s retirement leaves that state with no openly gay Republicans in office. Nationally, the number of openly gay Republicans in elected office is down to a mere handful.
Not so long ago, officials like former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, Senator Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, and Senator James Jeffords of Vermont stood out as leaders of a vigorous if small socially liberal wing of the GOP. Now gay Republicans increasingly lack any candidates for high office that principled libertarians could support. In Massachusetts, the Log Cabin Club recoiled from the escalating homophobia of Governor Mitt Romney, a Mormon who’s trying to parlay his opposition to the “homosexual agenda” into fundamentalist support for his probable run for the presidency in 2008. The group refused to endorse the ill-fated candidacy of Romney’s Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, who also opposes same-sex marriage, in the Commonwealth’s 2006 governor’s race. In California, what was once enthusiasm for the gay rights stance of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has waned with his veto of the first same-sex marriage bill to win legislative approval in America. Senator John McCain, who thrillingly lambasted Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as “agents of intolerance” in 2000, has since cozied up to Falwell, speaking at the commencement ceremony of Liberty University, Orwellian name and all, in 2006. He now touts his support for “family values” in his stump speeches, using code words with clear meaning to both the religious Right and the GLBT electorate.
Many activists who have long advocated pursuing GLBT rights through both major parties, this writer included, have despaired of the increasing antipathy the Republican Party is showing to our community with the issue of marriage equality in play. As Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund President Chuck Wolfe put it, the Republican “Big Tent” is now “more of a revival tent. It has chased out more and more gay Republicans.” George W. Bush’s largely successful effort to brand the GOP as the party of “traditional values” and his opposition to same-sex marriage have created a climate which is toxic to GLBT participation.
The Foley scandal both encapsulates and reinforces the anti-gay trend in Republican politics that George W. Bush rode to get re-elected. The religious Right is making clear its displeasure with the fact that the Republican Congress allowed a “cabal” of gay Republicans to amass so much power and influence. Some have charged that it was excessive tolerance of homosexuality that let Foley get away with inappropriate conduct for as long as he did. The Reverend Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition wants the very notion of a “Big Tent” to be repudiated. “What happens is not a happy tent like the Barnum and Bailey circus. You end up with a lot of mush in it.” Some Republican leaders resorted to rank gay bashing as they attempted to contain the fallout from the Foley scandal. The traumatic coming out experiences of gay Democratic Congressmen Barney Frank and the late Gerry Studds were dredged up from decades ago. The smear was intended to deflect attention from Foley’s serious misconduct in the hope that voters could be fooled into overlooking all the hypocrisy, something Studds and Frank could never be accused of.
These are dark times for those seeking to support both libertarian economic policies and GLBT equality as proud gay Republicans. The present political reality is that efforts to advance equality and outmaneuver the religious Right from within the GOP have become untenable. Gays who are willing to sacrifice fair and equal treatment for the gay community in order to retain their influence as Republican insiders will be distrusted on all sides. If there’s any silver lining to the Foley scandal, it is the fact that we now have unmistakable clarity in the choices we face as a community. It may be possible in the future to reclaim the party of Lincoln as a vehicle for securing GLBT freedom, but for the present the path to progress lies elsewhere.
POSTSCRIPT. Soon after the election, Ken Mehlman left his position as Chair of the Republican National Committee—but not before being outed as gay by Bill Maher on Larry King Live. Mehlman’s replacement will be Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, one of the most notoriously homophobic members of Congress.
Don Gorton, a Boston lawyer and longtime gay activist, served in the administration of former Massachusetts Republican Governor William Weld as Co-Chair of the Governor’s Task Force on Hate Crimes.
