Posted on 03/03/2004 7:20:05 PM PST by dagnabbit
RIGHT OF WAY
President George W. Bush considers D.C.'s openly gay Republican at-large councilmember a "maverick."
That's quite apropos.
But the designation doesn't refer to David A. Catania's habit of bucking Mayor Anthony A. Williams on city-governance issues. Or to the rabid tax-cutter's fight to preserve the city's lone public hospital. Or to the local Republican's advocacy of gay marriage.
LL will return to that point in a moment.
Catania has earned his distinction because he has raised a lot of money over the past few years for Bush. And in the prez's Lone Star jargon, "maverick" is high praise.
Now Catania regrets every penny.
According to the Bush campaign, "mavericks" are under-40-year-old supporters who have raised more than $50,000 for the president's re-election efforts. Thirty-something Catania estimates his fundraising prowess at between $70,000 and $80,000. In fact, the local Republican's activism and coffer-filling on behalf of the president earned him an exclusive invitation to the Bush family ranch in Crawford, Texas, this past summer.
A photograph in Catania's John A. Wilson Building office shows Catania standing next to First Lady Laura Bush as her husband throws his arm around Catania's partner, Brian Kearney.
The two couples look quite comfortable together. "At the ranch, the president went out of his way to thank me for bringing Brian," says Catania.
Good thing Catania didn't ask Bush for his blessing to get hitched.
On Tuesday, the president turned D.C.'s popularly elected GOPer into even more of a maverick. Bush announced his support for a constitutional amendment banning marriage for gay and lesbian couples, a clear sop to right-wingers in his party who've been squawking about this issue for months. Their rationale is that government sanctioning of same-sex marriages might weaken society as we know it.
Yes, just think of the wreckage in the District alone! Such vibrant neighborhoods as Logan Circle and Capitol Hill have suffered greatly from the infusion of gay couples equipped with drywall, joint compound, and fierce nesting instincts!
Bush's announcement reverberated in the Dupont Circle home that Catania and Kearney moved into last year. Catania considered the White House statement "revolting." "My fundraising days for President Bush are over," he says. "The degree of disappointment I have in him is so profound."
The at-large councilmember removed the Bush photo from his office Wednesday morning.
Yet LL has to believe that the party maverick must have expected this announcement for quite some time. Catania says his fundraising for Bush occurred before gay marriage moved to the forefront of the national discourse. The party's "troglodytes," as Catania refers to GOP right-wingers, decided to bag their states-rights credo when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court cleared the way for same-sex marriages in that state in a decision last November.
At that time, Bush vowed to "do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage."
LL encourages readers to look up the current divorce rate and then look up the definition of "sanctity." Actually, LL will save you the time. Fifty percent of first marriages end in divorce. "Sanctity," in this sense, is defined as "the fact of being sacred or inviolable," according to Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition.
"What is outrageous is the level of hypocrisy that the administration, and the president, is engaged in. He promised to be a uniter, not a divider," says Catania. "He promised to be a compassionate conservative. There is nothing conservative about amending the Constitution—nor is there anything compassionate about writing discrimination into the Constitution."
Now, LL understands that the GOP—like the Democratic Party—is a big tent, with lots of room for dissent. "My participation in the party should not be seen as condoning or excusing the party's intolerance and poor record in respect to gays and lesbians," Catania explained to LL Tuesday.
At some point, though, dissent spills into ideological incompatibility. Take a look:
Catania says he hopes to fight the troglodytes in the party and try to recapture the party of Abraham Lincoln from Ralph Reed and the social conservatives. To that end, Catania plans to be one of two D.C. delegates to the party's platform convention and vows to fight the party "bigots." "I'm not delusional. I don't have any expectations of succeeding. None," he admits. "The reason I remain in the Republican party is to attempt to have our voice at table when our lives are being discussed."
Catania points to his impact on the local Republican party. He points out that five of the D.C. delegates to the national convention are openly gay. Of course, the local delegation hardly reflects the national party.
LL only has to point to fellow D.C. delegate Carol Schwartz, who has more gay friends than Madonna.
Catania says he will remain in the party for now. "If this were a decision that affected only me, it would be much easier, and I would think about bolting the party," says Catania. "This is a smack right between the eyes.... This is not a fight I asked for, and I didn't pick [it], but I'm not going to run away from it."
Yet Catania says if the election were held today, he would not cast his vote for Bush. "Absolutely not. I don't know how he can repair the damage that he has done," says Catania.
"I will never vote for a person who attempts to write discrimination into the Constitution," he says.
It would be interesting to see the happy-couples-at-the-Ranch photo.
Right of Way (Gay Republican mad at GWB (who once hugged partner))
Wish the Posting preview showed the title and not just the text body.
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