I REMEMBER THE MOMENT VERY WELL. It was a little more than a year ago, but it seems like a lifetime now. I was headed out the door of my Washington office, brief case in hand, bound for a pleasant, relaxing weekend in New York with friends. My secretary stopped me and said a reporter from The Advocate was on the phone.
I had spoken to this reporter before. So, when I picked up the phone and heard him say he needed to talk to me in person, I wasn't surprised. We agreed to meet the following Monday when I returned from New York. I hung up the phone and left the office, determined to enjoy my rare weekend "off duty." But at that moment, I sensed my life was about to change - irrevocably and fundamentally. Or was it?
The conversation on Monday confirmed what I suspected. The Advocate - in an article about DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, intended to "out" me as a gay - but not openly so - Republican Member of the House of Representatives. Armed with that knowledge, I decided to beat them to the punch by making the announcement myself.
What followed was a kaleidoscope of decisions, activities, and conversations that most gays and lesbians handle over the course of months - or years. In my case - my very public case - I only had five short days. Between Monday and Friday I had to lay out a game plan; inform my staff and colleagues in the House about my sexual orientation and why I was acknowledging it; write a press statement and letters to key supporters; and call to a seemingly endless list of friends, supporters, and, yes, family. You see, I come from a family?and I know many of you can relate to this?where we never discussed such personal things as "feelings."
No "operation" as complex as this, of course, ever comes off exactly as you plan it. Too many people had to be notified. The press got wind and Thursday evening - twelve hours ahead of schedule - the story broke on the late evening television news. That broke the dam and by the next morning every media outlet in the country had the story.
The phones rang, and they rang, and they rang - in Tucson and in Washington. Incidentally, by the time the calls and faxes tapered off and tallied the numbers, over 97 percent of everyone we heard from expressed support in one way or another.
All of this - this astonishing, compressed chain of events - occurred during the final week leading up to Congress' August recess. While I was trying to manage this life-changing event - politically and personally - Congress was considering, and voting on, Welfare Reform and the final version of illegal immigration legislation. All this, simultaneous with phone calls to my 86-year-old mother and to news outlets in Arizona. What a week!
Friday ended; Welfare Reform was on its way to the White House for Presidential signature, and Jim Kolbe had taken his place as the second openly gay Republican in the United States Congress. Saturday morning I flew home to Arizona, went to the office and did one-on-one interviews with each of the television news outlets in my community. The questions by now were boringly repetitious and predictable - but they had to be answered - patiently, honestly, candidly. I remember saying at the end of the last interview, half to myself and half to the assembled press: "That's it, folks. You've got your story. Now I am going back to being the Congressman I was before."
And I did. An hour later, I stood in front of an audience at the University of Arizona praising the Udall Foundation for its establishment of a Native American Intern Program. The next week, I conducted my usual August series of town halls, listening to voters praise or vilify Congress and me for what we had done - or not done.
Was I slipping back into denial, a habit I formed early in adult life and gradually shed as I came to terms with my own sexuality? I believe the answer is emphatically "no." I was simply reasserting myself as the Congressman from Arizona's Fifth District, the acknowledged Republican leader for free trade and open markets, the new advocate of Social Security Reform, the proponent of less government, lower taxes and more individual responsibility. These were the issues I had been advocating for twelve years in Congress and six years before that in the Arizona Senate. Oh, yes, I happened to be a gay person, too. But, being gay was not - and is not today - my defining persona.
Which leads me to the substance of my remarks tonight. Are we - Log Cabin members and friends - Republicans first, or are we gay persons who happen to think our political views incidentally make us Republicans, also?
If I focus on the need to liberalize trade, cut taxes, and balance the budget, does that mean I cannot also be recognized as a quiet voice of reason on issues of civil liberties and individual rights for homosexuals in our society? Conversely, if I become a "poster boy" and talk mostly about gay/lesbian issues, do I reduce myself to irrelevance with my Republican brethren in the House and cause Republicans?
To answer these questions, I ask you to think back to the celebration we had this Spring, marking the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut in major league baseball, the breaking down of the color barrier in America's national pastime. Can anyone here tonight doubt how Jackie Robinson paved the way for a generation of sports greats from the African-American community - from Jackie Robinson and Mohammed Ali to Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods? It wasn't because Jackie Robinson held frequent press conferences, or made speeches, or participated in boycotts. It was because he played baseball, and he played it well.
To his potential detractors, he left no room for doubt that he had been hired by Branch Rickey to do anything except play the best baseball the National League had to offer. Jackie Robinson succeeded in breaking the color barrier in baseball because he proved he was a great baseball player. He paved the way for countless other minorities in professional sports, not because he trumpeted his color but because he played baseball so well. That's what Mohammed Ali did with his right jab and that is what Michael does with his incredible slam-dunks and that is what Tiger Woods is doing for golf with an awesome, cool performance at the Masters. They hit baseballs, throw knock-out punches, shoot baskets flawlessly, and hit golf balls with deadly precision. And they just happen to be African Americans or people of color.
Do they deny their color with their acts of professionalism? Do we deny that we are gay or lesbian by being gathered here tonight as Log Cabin Republicans? Certainly not. And yet there are many in the gay community for whom "gay Republican" is a contradiction in terms.
I, for one, reject such narrow-minded thinking. Just as there are Republicans and Democrats with different points of view, African-Americans who disagree over affirmative action, veterans who differ about a flag burning amendment to the Constitution and Jews who passionately differ as to whether Israel should be supported at any political price - so, too, will there be gays who differ about DOMA and ENDA - and, yes, about immigration policies and taxation of capital gains.
We are not monolithic. We are diverse? varied? individualistic. It is this latter characteristic - our belief in individual liberty - that brings us together tonight as Log Cabin Republicans - Republicans who happen to be gay. This is a core value I dare say we share with the vast majority of fair-minded Americans. There is nothing intrinsically "gay" about it.
As I often remind my constituents in southern Arizona, our nation was founded on the proposition, stated so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, "...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." For more than two hundred years now we, the people of the United States of America, have struggled to realize the full meaning of our creed: to create an opportunity society that empowers all citizens to achieve the American Dream. And make no mistake: it has been a struggle.
I ask my constituents to consider the words of Abraham Lincoln, whom I revere as our greatest President. A century and a half ago - in 1855, when he was still a country lawyer - he dared to suggest that the nation was failing to live up to its promise that "all men are created equal." As Lincoln said,
We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
Doesn't it seem strange, I ask my constituents, to think that Lincoln's words were considered radical at the time, and that such thinking would help provoke a civil war?
I remind my friends and neighbors in southern Arizona that personal liberty - the freedom to choose - is the cornerstone of our American democracy. If each of us is to fully enjoy the opportunities and blessings of liberty, then all of us must accept responsibility for our own actions, and for how our actions will affect the lives of others.
As Friedrich August von Hayek, the great Austrian economist, explained:
Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions.
I believe proprietary self-interest and concern for one's fellow man are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they go hand in hand, and I believe that together they comprise the "content of our character" by which Dr. Martin Luther King said each of us should be judged.
The American ideal of limited government of the people, by the people, and for the people is also a radical concept. Our founding fathers dared to believe that government should derive its authority from the consent of the governed, and not the other way around. Thomas Jefferson elaborated on his conception of "good government" when he took the oath of office as our nation's third President in 1801. He said:
The sum of good government is to restrain men from injuring one another and leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
James Madison, who succeed Jefferson as President, clearly saw the dangers inherent in unlimited government. He warned that:
...there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
It is not that I and my fellow Republicans in Congress who seek to change the status quo believe the Federal government is some sort of malevolent agent, intentionally seeking to deprive us of our liberty. Rather, we believe the power of the federal government has grown far beyond anything our founding fathers could have imagined. More important, it has grown so large it gets in the way of citizens' ability to maximize their individual freedom and opportunities. Jefferson and Madison understood intuitively that government, in and of itself, cannot provide happiness. That is something you must pursue for yourself. What our government can ensure - and what your fellow American citizens ought to honor - is your liberty, in law, to live out your American Dream.
Ronald Reagan said it very well more than a decade ago in a speech he entitled, "A Time for Choosing." He said these words:
...for almost two centuries we have proved man's capacity for self-government, but today we are told we must choose between a left and a right or, as others suggest, a third alternative, a safe middle ground. I suggest to you there is no left or right, only an up or down. Up - to the maximum of individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism...
With those words, Ronald Reagan expressed what should be the credo of all Log Cabin Republicans - "individual freedom consistent with law and order." Isn't that what we as Republicans believe in? Surely, that expresses what we as Log Cabin Republicans - concerned with government intrusion into our private lives, devoted to maximizing individual liberties and responsibilities - must believe.
I am both fascinated and amused with the convergence in views of some Republicans on the right side of our Party with the views of gay, liberal Democrats. Neither would even admit their common philosophy, but it is there, nevertheless. The so-called conservative Republican deplores big government, welfare programs, erosion of personal liberties - and then votes for constitutional amendments to ban flag burning, or to proscribe specific medical procedures for a doctor performing an abortion, or to deny gays their rights to fully participate in our society.
Liberal, gay Democrats, on the other hand, deplore the intrusion of government into the bedroom or the doctors' examining room - and then proceed to wax eloquent for programs that would nationalize the entire health care delivery system, or compel poor people to live in sub-standard housing operated by the liberal bureaucracy, or decry programs to give education vouchers to lower income parents so that they might send their children to schools of their own choosing.
We might be excused for excessive hubris for thinking Log Cabin Republicans are the only gays who really understand that individual liberties are for everyone. Why is it, then, that as gay Republicans we have allowed gay Democrats, largely committed to the collectivist state, to speak for gay and lesbian rights? Why are the ones committed to expanding government control over our lives in housing and in education, the ones who would nibble at our freedom through use and abuse of the tax code and regulatory system - why - how - are they presumed to speak for gay rights? What distortion of the definition of freedom and liberty has given them unfiltered access to the megaphone, claiming to express the views of all gays?
But, just as we must not abandon the battlefield of policy to the illiberal left, so we must not allow the religious fundamentalists to use "morality" as a cudgel against us. For many gays, the process of coming out involves shedding the guilt and shame associated with our sexuality. In that process, most of us conclude - rightly, I believe - that we are not "immoral" just because we are homosexual.
Unfortunately, many gays go a step further and reject any association of behavior and morality. A rejection of the hypocrisy of the rigid morality of the 1950s has led conservatives and liberals alike to flee from public discourse about what is right or wrong. And so, we have a society where divorce rates and illegitimate births are soaring, where teenage violence and drug use is rampant. We may invoke a moral position for ourselves, but we adopt moral neutrality for everyone else. The result is a backlash in society, for the simple fact is - people yearn for moral guidance.
As columnist Dan Perreten recently pointed out, we must not lose sight of the distinction between the words "moral" - principles of right and wrong in behavior - and "moralizing." We are, Perreten notes, so offended by the practitioners of the latter that we fail to acknowledge the importance of the former. Just as we must challenge liberal Democrats on policy issues where we know them to be wrong, so must we engage in an honest, candid debate with ourselves on moral issues that affect the gay and lesbian community.
The fact is, we belong to the party that really talks about concerns of the gay community. Ours is the party of Abraham Lincoln, of Theodore Roosevelt, of Ronald Reagan. It is the party of freedom, liberty, and individual responsibility. We are a minority within the Republican party when we think of ourselves as gays. But when we add all those Republicans, and other Americans who won't be identified with a party - all those who do not want government telling them what to do - then we are a majority. When we understand this simple fact and act like majority Republicans, we will win.
Call it "safe middle ground" if you like, but it represents the historical mainstream of Republican thinking for 150 years. Republicans will support, and elected officials will vote, "our way" if the question is framed as one of "individual rights," not of "lifestyle." Opposing discrimination on the basis of one's sexual orientation is not a matter of defending a lifestyle; it is protecting our rights as individual American citizens, just as surely as all of us would oppose discrimination against Jews or women or African-Americans because such discrimination is contrary to the fundamental principles underlying our Constitution. Discrimination should be an abomination to all Republicans - Log Cabin Republicans and moral majority Republicans. But it is equally right for Republicans to oppose special privileges for any group - quotas or special legal protection.
Sometimes we must show special courage as gay Republicans, standing up to the conventional wisdom in both the Republican party and the gay community. But with a foot in both groups, true to the principles we know to be right, we can gain the respect and acceptance of gays and Republicans alike. When you argue the case to your Congressman or state Assemblyman for school choice - when you tell them this is an exercise of individual choice in education - you show them a face of gay Republicans they may not have seen before. When you talk to them about how lower taxes can expand jobs and opportunities for Americans of all stripes, you speak a language they understand but have not heard from the gay community.
We gain acceptance and build our bridges, not by stressing that we are gay people who are Republicans, but that we are Republicans who happen to be gay or lesbian - that we are Republicans who care about families and schools, who believe in a strong national defense and laws that are tough on criminals, who worry about the environment and want to balance the budget so the next generation is not saddled with the fruits of our profligacy.
My constituents and my Republican colleagues in Congress respect me and support me because they know I am fighting for open markets, free trade and consumer choice, for a balanced budget, and for an honest overhaul of our Social Security system. To them, these issues are no less important, and I am no less qualified to make the case for them, now than before my announcement. Free trade is the engine of our economic prosperity and the ticket to future competitiveness. Balancing the budget - a feat Republicans achieved this year for the first time in 30 years - matters because it says we care about our nation's stability. And thinking honestly about transforming Social Security from a dead-end tax into a real retirement savings plan says that we care about the future for the next generation.
Log Cabin Republicans have already shown they can speak to the broad concerns of all Republicans. Four years ago, in the New York mayoral race, Log Cabin Republicans introduced an ad, the tag line for which was: "Who says crime is not a gay issue?" That simple message speaks volumes, both about ourselves as gay Republicans, and to the large majority of Republicans who have the same worries about crime and safety. "Who says crime is not a gay issue?" Of course it is. It's everybody's issue. The sooner we speak to it - and to similar issues - the sooner we speak to middle America, the sooner we enter the mainstream of American politics.
In the 1996 Republican presidential sweepstakes, Log Cabin Republicans demonstrated their moral courage and constancy, by taking on the prospective Republican nominee when a Log Cabin contribution was first accepted and then rejected. When Log Cabin stood its ground, Senator Dole's campaign changed its attitude, accepted the contribution, issued an apology, and conferred new respect to this organization. When Log Cabin Republicans endorsed Dole's Presidential bid, they demonstrated that they were an important part of the team.
The cause for all gay persons, Republicans and Democrats alike, will be advanced when we focus not on what sets us apart from our fellow Americans but on what we share in common; when we demonstrate our concern and our commitment, our expertise and our execution, on issues that matter to main street America.
Bruce Bawer, in a recent column, talks about a revolution that is taking place in America today - a revolution he says that is the worst nightmare of a far-left gay activist. It is a revolution brought about by people who work in corporations, worship in our churches, speak through our news media and teach in our schools. It is a revolution brought about by ordinary gay people who live their lives in ordinary ways on every ordinary day.
By doing so, Bawer says, other ordinary Americans "have grown from ignorance into knowledge, from lies into truth, from prejudice into love." There are still two Americas, he notes, one in which homosexuality is accepted as part of everyday life and another in which gays continue to be demonized and discriminated against. But, if we are ever to eliminate the division, it will be because of those ordinary people living their ordinary lives. It will also be because a few brave, extraordinary people, some of whom are gathered here tonight, choose to reject the politics of exclusion and group identity. You are here tonight because have chosen to pursue the politics of inclusion and mainstream values.
Last December, just a few months after my announcement made big news, I was privileged to speak at the dedication of a statue commemorating the 150th anniversary of the peaceful arrival of The Mormon Battalion in the Presidio of Tucson during the Mexican War. I shared the dais that day with my friend and colleague from the Arizona Congressional delegation, Matt Salmon, and Gordon Hinkley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. More than 7,000 people came from throughout Southern Arizona. Most were Mormons, and maybe a third were directly descended from members of the Mormon Battalion.
In my remarks, I noted that the men of the Mormon Battalion had volunteered to serve their country in spite of the fact that the federal government had done little to protect them from religious persecution. These were men who, along with their families, had been driven from their homes in the East by angry, intolerant neighbors. In many cases their property had been stolen or confiscated. Some of their brethren - including Joseph Smith, founder of the faith - had even been murdered for their beliefs. Despite all this, 500 Mormon men faithfully answered the call to enlist and march 2,000 miles from Iowa to California. This arduous, six-month trek remains the longest infantry march in U.S. Army history. And they accomplished this remarkable feat without a shot being fired in anger.
I noted that the statue honoring the Mormon Battalion was really a monument to peace? and tolerance. This was a message this audience could understand. At least three times they interrupted my remarks with their applause. And in the months that have followed my office has received more requests for that speech than for any other I have ever given.
Last spring, in the wake of Susan Molinari's resignation announcement, I joined a small group of my Republican House colleagues to discuss the leadership races. Names were being tossed around - moderates who might run for Conference Vice-Chairman or Secretary. Finally, someone turned to me and said: "Well, Jim, why don't you run? You've got the seniority, you're a moderate, and you've shown your leadership on trade and other issues. You'd be a good candidate!"
"Oh, sure," I replied. "I'm sure our Republican caucus is ready to elect a pro-choice, gay person to the leadership."
"Oh, goodness," the first individual responded, "I had forgotten about that!"
Well, good. Perhaps, from time to time, this individual - and others - need to be gently reminded that I am gay, if only so that they remember how secondary it is in my political and everyday life.
Arizona Republic cartoonist Steve Benson got it right after my coming out when he did a cartoon - two identical drawings of Jim Kolbe, side by side. One was labeled: "Jim Kolbe, hard-working, fiscally conservative, socially moderate Republican Congressman from Arizona - before he announced he was gay." The second, same caricature, had the same label, except "After he announced he was gay." Looks like the same guy to me.