Posted on 10/20/2006 12:22:57 PM PDT by presidio9
They are members of an increasingly exclusive club — a district attorney and a mayor from southern California, a legislator from Minnesota, a handful of others scattered across the country. They are elected officials who are Republican and openly gay.
"People think it's an oxymoron," said the Minnesota state senator, Paul Koering. "How can you be gay and be in the Republican Party?"
Never more than a tiny fraction of GOP politicians, openly gay Republicans are about to disappear from Congress with the retirement of Rep. Jim Kolbe (news, bio, voting record) of Arizona, and Koering is the lone openly gay GOP state legislator — out of 7,382 seats nationwide. The Democrats, by contrast, have 56 openly gay legislators and embrace an array of gay-rights causes.
Against that backdrop is the scandal involving Republican Mark Foley. The former Florida congressman who abruptly quit because of sexually explicit messages he sent to male pages, and later acknowledged he is gay. Some conservatives cite the scandal as reason for the GOP to further distance itself from gays; others think that's a long-term losing strategy.
According to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which supports gay candidates, there are about 350 openly gay elected officials nationwide — up from about 50 in 1990. Of those elected on party tickets, 140 are Democrats and 11 are Republicans, the fund said.
Victory Fund president Chuck Wolfe said the ranks of openly gay GOP candidates have dwindled in recent years as religious conservatives have expanded their influence and made opposition to same-sex marriage a high-profile issue in the 2004 election.
Instead of an all-welcoming "big tent," the GOP "is more of a revival tent," Wolfe said. "It has chased out more and more gay Republicans."
Among those determined to stay is Peter Hankwitz, a TV producer and talent manager who is the GOP nominee challenging incumbent Democrat Brad Sherman for a congressional seat in California's San Fernando Valley.
Hankwitz is a heavy underdog, without funding from national GOP committees. Yet state Republican officials have been supportive, even posing for pictures with Hankwitz and Julian Trevino, his domestic partner since 1997.
Hankwitz resents what he calls "single-issue social politics" — such as the ban-gay-marriage campaign — and wishes he could get to Congress to help moderate his party.
"Unfortunately, we're influenced by the people on the extreme right and extreme left," he said.
Southern California already has openly gay Republicans in office — including San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and Redondo Beach Mayor Mike Gin.
Gin says he has no qualms about remaining Republican.
"I believe in the basic tenets — limited government, individual rights, a strong economy and national defense," he said. "It's important to me to provide a more moderate voice."
Likewise, Koering — who opposes abortion and gun control — wants to keep working within the GOP. He recently won a primary over a conservative whose campaign stressed "moral values."
"It would be easy for me to go to the Democrats — they court me on a daily basis," Koering said. "But my home is in the Republican Party. I'm not going to let the people with a radical agenda kick me out."
Nationally, GOP officials have voiced no concern about the scarcity of openly gay officeholders. Tara Wall of the Republican National Committee and Alex Johnson of the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee said it wasn't a priority.
"We look for good candidates who believe in our message," said Johnson. "If they happen to be gay, it's their prerogative."
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said the issue is not a candidate's sexual orientation in and of itself. "It's whether they support pro-family policies," he said.
Democratic politicians generally seek gay support and encourage gay candidacies.
Gay Democrats have won legislative seats even in seemingly inhospitable territory, scoring breakthroughs recently in Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina and Georgia.
Perkins said the GOP shouldn't worry about losing votes of gays because their numbers are dwarfed by Christian conservatives. He predicted that any GOP presidential hopeful deemed a gay-rights supporter would be denied the 2008 nomination.
The Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition urged the GOP to reject the concept of a "big tent" welcoming gays.
"What happens is not a happy tent like the Barnum and Bailey circus," he said. "You end up with a lot of mush in it."
Sheldon predicted that Republican organizers, because of the Foley scandal, would be more aggressive in asking if prospective candidates are gay.
The president of the largest national gay rights group, Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, said the GOP was at a significant crossroads.
"Most Americans believe both parties ought to be open and inclusive," he said. "So you've got the Republican leadership in a quandary: how do you balance that public sentiment ... with the powerful voting bloc of the radical right?"
For nearly 30 years, a group called Log Cabin Republicans has lobbied to make the GOP more open to gays. Its executive vice president, Patrick Sammon, is optimistic.
"Anti-gay Republicans want a narrow agenda that only 25 to 30 percent of Americans actually agree with," Sammon said. "Republican officeholders are shrewd enough to understand that's a losing strategy, that the party risks being on the wrong side of history."
Just so you know adulters are just as "deviant" as homosexuals and do much more harm to their families.
I don't see a crusade to kick out all adulters too.
The fact is that homosexuality is yes against what the Bible teaches. However, I would happily vote in a homosexual Republican over many other wanna be Republicans and certainly over a Democrat.
That homosexual is going to have to answer to God like the rest of us. If they want to face that then let them do that. I'm certainly not going to hold someone out of office based on one issue.
One can always hope. The big tent is a morass. (That could be a pun I guess)
A Pink Nazi is a Pink Nazi: it matters not whether they call themselves Republican or Democrat. Trust a Pink Nazi like you would trust a Muslim with a rocket launcher.
True, but they produce about 55% of the hot air of this country and about 80% of the petulant, self-indulgent whining we hear.
I'm sick of their whining. Even if their "lifestyle" wasn't ungodly and destructive, I'd be sick of their noise.
Any politician forthright enough to tell the organized political homosexual bellyachers to take a hike has gone a long way in getting my vote.
Flexible morality as tought in government schools.
Homosexual Republican is about a valid as saying "Bill Clinton home for unwed mothers."
I have no problem electing sinners to public office. It's only the ones who deny that their sin is sin that I have an issue with...
Adultery aka cheating on your husband or wife is a behavior
Homsoexuality is a behavior which is only abour recreational sex.
There is no Adultry coalition or HRC style coalition to give adulterers special rights.
cheaters acknowledge they are cheating. They may have excuses but they admit it is cheating. Homsoexuals trying and have the society forced into considering their behavior as normal.
The two are apples and oranges. (s)besides all homosexuals are not to blame because all homsoexuals were molested by catholic priests and therefor the real person to blame for homsoexuals is GWBush.(/s)
I don't see a crusade to kick out all adulters too.
Sin is sin and adultery is just as much a sin in God's eyes as homosexuality. But in a political sense, there is no adulterers' lobby, no pressure for inclusion of adulterers as adulterers.
..AND that they want to IMPOSE their sin ON EVERYBODY ELSE!... That is the part I don't like
"just shut up and vote...anyway you like!" :)
I understand that.. but then attack the lobby not the individual.
I'm just irritated with people that forget that this country is for everyone of every religion and of every belief system.
If people choose to be Atheist that's fine but if they understand our Constitution and fight to enforce then that's the guy I want in office.
How is it apples and oranges? Certainly not all of them are for forcing homosexuality into our schools and every where else.. they just want to be left alone.
Again it comes down to people just not understanding what this is really about. We are talking about individuals with agendas.. both sides who want to paint everyone the same way should be kept on the fringes where they should be.
And heteros don't engage in recreational sex? There aren't people who "swing"? There are all sort of lifestyles people are trying to push mainstream.
Give me a break.. it's not about homosexuals... it's about people feeling insecure enough about themselves that they don't focus on their own sin and have to rant and rave about one group of people.. it's totally ridculous.
Are you serious? Have you ever been drunk? Swore? Gamble? Stolen?
News flash for someone who doesn't understand the bible. We are all sinners.. we will always be sinners.. and we cannot stop our own sinning no matter how much we educate ourselves about what is sin.
As a wise man once said.......
We all have a vice.. and we sure do love it.
That's rich.. judge my morality....
Gay population explosion underway right in front of our noses and we never noticed a thing.
"This story and the foley story is about convincing the weak-minded that this is not an excuse to avoid the RAT party -- see, the republicans do it too."
I don't agree that that was the expressed purpose of the story, though some readers may think it speaks to them that way.
I think the writer went looking for "gay" Republicans leaving the party in droves over the Foley affair (though a small minority can't actually do anything in droves). I think the writer was reasonably surprised that that was not what they found.
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