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."
Homosexuals are only about recreational sex. Homosexuals want special finacial rewards from society based on their recreational sex. Homosexuals want (and have in some cities) special THOUGHT CRIME laws for their benefit.
You equate with adultery but you do not address the fact that there is a correction for those who cheat. They can stop cheating. the divocrce and go with the mistress. or they drop the mistress and return to the wife.
It is apparent in this foley scandal that ALL the homosexual staffers in DC are agenda driven in favor of the homosexuals. They attempt to influence their employees in a manner favorable to the sexual fetish.
Homosexuals are the only sex group seeking to push their fetish mainstream under penalty of court order.
Really.. all homosexuals want what you say they want? ALL OF THEM?
Foley was doing his part to create more homosexuals...
If the Republican party is not exclusively "Christian", nor should it ever hope to be, and if all Christians are not exclusively Republican, and all "conservatives" are not exclusively Christian, but most active conservatives (whether social conservatives, small-government conservatives, Libertarian conservatives, strong-national-defense conservatives, even "atheist" conservatives) are Republicans (I said most, not all), then there is nothing oxymoronic about a "gay" Republican.
It isn't radical to respect treaditional marriage, or to seek to preserve one's social traditions. What is radical is to seek to change them without regard to the potential damage it could do to society.
Most people are okay with the existence of other-respecting gays who do not wish to impose their lifestyle and its implicatins in a confrontational manner. "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins", and your right to swing in any other manner should be equally circumspect.
Blacks, as well as "gays" who are Democrats have fallen for the left's classic Marxist tactics. The left forms organizations and movements to hijack an identity and, by attaching those organizations to their political agenda, they seek to attach to their agenda all those with that "identity" as well.
Both Blacks and "gays" who have joined the Republican party have joined it because most of the "Black" and "gay" organizations have long-ago been hijacked by the left and they (Black and "gay" Republicans) obviously refuse to be identified with the Marxist, socialist, big-government, big-brother left; in spite of whatever differences they may have with other Republicans.
I don't think that was the specific intent of the writer of this particular article; but their editors surely were not opposed to keeping the "Foley" theme running, in any form, for the bad-for-the-GOP potential they think it has. I hope a good many people have already seen the transparent motives in that effort by much of the media.
No need you are transparent enough already.
"Newsflash to the homosexuals, opposing sexual deviants is the winning side of the equation. This is why democrats are throwing the homosexuals under the bus this election cycle."
"This is also to build sympathy for the pro-homosexual amendment in colorado which seeks to create "homosexual marriage" in all but the name. There is one referendum that must be voted down."
Newsflash to you. The Dimorats are not "throwing THE homosexuals under the bus". If that's what they were really doing and if they were really trying to get "values" voters, they would have thrown some major Dimorat as well as GOP "gay" under the bus.
But that was not their motive. Their motive was to get the GOP "values" voters to not vote for the bad "Foley" GOP in November - just stay home.
And, no one has, or could have been expected to find "sympathy" in Colorado for the "homosexual marriage" amendment, because of the Foley affair and the continued media mantra on the "gay" GOP theme. If anything, just the opposite.
I think the "gays" in the GOP are obviously in the GOP precisely because they reject the fascistic (Nazi) tendancies that the left has created in most of the "gay activist" groups; including most of the fascist aspects of their "agenda".
"That said, the GOP needs to get serious about kicking out the "out and proud" homos, or they're just asking for an @ss whomping at the polls.....And the Dems know it, which is why they're stirring the pot on this issue."
I disagree. The Dimorats are not looking to get "values voters" to come to them (oh those wonderful Dimorats, they "exposed" Foley [and honor Studds, Frank, etc]).
They are simply hoping to smear the entire GOP with "Foley" and get the GOP's "values voters" to stay home.
"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..."
Which is exactly the crux of the issue with deviants demanding acceptance, normalization, and exaltation of their perverted behavior. We won't even go into the issue of demanding by the homophiles and homopeds that their behavior be codified as normal and that those that oppose it are abnormal and deserve prosecution as "homophobes." The real world of homosexual behavior is not the Will and Grace show.
Politics is the art of being compromised.
It's past time for the GOP to welcome gays into the party. Social views have changed dramatically over the last 30 years. Most people view it as an acceptable lifestyle, especially the <40 crowd.
You should vote for the candidate who is most likely to provide the greatest entertainment value during their term.
(it's a joke, a joke)
I love Free Republic, except I can't stand the holier than thou religious homophobe bigots that post here. They spout the Bible to spew their hate, but I wonder how many of them would write off a gay relative like your gay brother in the name of the Bible ?
I don't recall reading about Jesus condemning homosexuality. Homophobes have to go back to the eye for an eye stoning days of the Old Testament to support their hatred. If we lived by the teachings of the Old Testament, we'd be no better than the Islamo-fascists we face today.
Politics should be about ideology not sexology. I too would vote for a gay conservative over a heterosexual liberal any day of the week. I know you love your brother, and I only hope there are more freepers like you.
Sadly, many conservative believe they can hold back social evolution like King Canute could hold hold the tides.
I missed the part where Jesus was cool with dropping MOABs on people, either.
But apparently, I was misinformed.
There are some people who just do not like gay people. This is a fact of life. And it won't be argued or social engineered out of them.
Likewise, there are many communities around the country where gay people are not welcomed. Again, another fact of life.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.