First published June 10, 2003, in FrontPage Magazine.com.
This is a substantially revised version.
Curiouser and curiouser. Take the charge hurled by gay activists
that the Bush administration is irredeemably "anti-gay" and compare
it with accusations by religious conservatives that the
administration has been "pandering to the homosexual lobby" and it
can leave you feeling like you've taken a tumble through Alice's
mirror. It's verdict first, trial later, and let's all enjoy the
tea party as long as we're sure to only talk amongst ourselves.
"I believe marriage is between man and woman, and I think we
ought to codify that one way or another" President Bush said on
July 30. No surprise there, say gay activists. He's an anti-gay
conservative.
But someone forgot to tell the anti-gay conservatives! They
don't see Bush as being on their side at all. In fact, they view
the marriage amendment as his last chance to redeem himself.
Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative National Review,
recently wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post titled "The
President Keeps His Distance," complaining that George W. is
missing in action on the culture war front - especially in not
being more vigilant in opposing gay marriage. As Lowry writes:
When Bush was asked about gay marriage, you got the feeling he
would have preferred not to be asked at all. … This is a loss for
those of us who are conservatives. It means that, on important
issues, a crucial player isn't fully engaged.
Lowry and his conservative kind wish Bush would be more like
anti-gay big-mouth Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. The gay left
refuses to see any distinction between the two. Maybe they should
start reading the rightwing press.
After all, it's fair enough to criticize the president for, like
Bill Clinton, supporting efforts to outlaw government recognition
of gay marriage. But the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force missed
the boat with its press
release. "It is unbecoming of the President of the United
States to characterize same-sex couples as 'sinners,'" said Matt
Foreman, the Task Force's new executive director. But what Bush
actually
said was this:
"Yes, I am mindful that we're all sinners. And I caution those
who may try to take the speck out of the neighbor's eye when
they've got a log in their own. I think it's important for our
society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good
hearts, to be a welcoming country. On the other hand, that does not
mean that somebody like me needs to compromise on the issue of
marriage."
So Bush said we're ALL sinners, and then castigates critics of
gays for not focusing on their own sinfulness and for their lack of
respect toward others. A Bush spokesman later
added, when asked if Bush considers homosexuality a sin, that
someone's sexual orientation is "personal business in the
president's view."
Foreman was overwrought when he concluded Bush is "obviously
desperate to keep the country's focus off the war in Iraq and the
dismal state of the economy, and he's willing to do it on the backs
of gay men and lesbians, even if it means proposing legislation
that already exists as law." Foreman's antipathy toward the
president is so strong he couldn't hear the criticism of the
religious right in Bush's remarks.
Is Everything Bush Does Anti-Gay?
How distorted can the views of both the gay left and the social
right be? Let's take a look at some the recent rhetoric of
"progressive" gay activists. Gay-negative actions by the Bush
administration have been said to include the faith-based
initiatives, which are "a threat to gay people" according
(again) to the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. The NGLTF
also views welfare reform
reauthorization as anti-gay, since "the Republican bill provides
funds for 'healthy marriage promotion activities' and 'fatherhood
programs.' … We need a bill that is sensitive to the needs of GLBT
[gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender] people."
Here's another typical view from
the gay left, from Gay City News:
The Bush administration and some Republican members of Congress
are signaling that they will advance legislation which could
override existing state and local laws that ban discrimination
based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
"It's exactly what we've been afraid of," said Lorri L. Jean
[who was then NGLTF's executive director]. "The Bush administration
now thinks it has carte blanche to run roughshod over the GLBT
community and others."
Or Is Bush Pandering to Gays?
So is the Bush gang an anti-gay clique? Far from it, claim
religious conservatives, who first made clear their
displeasure with the administration's openly gay appointees,
including career-diplomat Michael Guest to serve as ambassador to
Romania. But the most impassioned round of infighting started over
the now-notorious remarks by Sen. Santorum, which gay activists saw
as revealing latent fascism in the GOP, while religious
conservatives viewed the president's defense of Santorum as
unacceptably tepid.
Santorum's comments supporting so-called "sodomy laws" that
criminalized adult, consensual homosexual relations and his
prediction that that if the Supreme Court were to overturn such
laws (as they soon would do), then there would be no legal basis
for states to outlaw incest, bestiality, adultery, and polygamy
provoked a firestorm of
criticism from gay activists and liberals. Yet here's what
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer had to say, providing the
official
response:
"The president has confidence in Senator Santorum, both as a
senator and as a member of the Senate leadership."
Asked about the president's views on homosexuality, Fleischer
said a person's sexuality is "not a matter that the president
concerns himself with" and that he judges people on how they act as
a whole. Bush subsequently praised Santorum as "an inclusive man,"
without elaborating.
The dog that didn't bark here was any hint of support for
Santorum's views favoring sodomy laws and his belief that
consulting adults are not entitled to sexual privacy in their
bedrooms. So it's not surprising that religious conservatives were
upset. In the words of the Family
Research Council:
Beyond a few tepid statements of personal support for Sen.
Santorum, no prominent national GOP leader seems willing or able to
mount a spirited, principled defense of marriage and family.
The question naturally arises: Have Republican leaders been so
intimidated by the smear tactics of the homosexual lobby and its
Democratic attack dogs that they are cowering in silence?
And, ominously:
If Republican leaders cannot mount a vigorous defense of
marriage, then pro-family voters perhaps should begin to reconsider
their loyalty to the party.
On the heels of the Santorum blowup another brouhaha erupted
when then GOP National Committee Chairman Marc Racicot, who went on
to head the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election effort, met with the Human
Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay political lobby. A
subsequent meeting was held between lower-level administration
officials and the gay Log Cabin Republicans. Again, in the words of the Family Research
Council:
Despite repeated assurances, both public and private, that the
party has no intention of abandoning its commitment to the sanctity
of marriage and the family, the White House and the GOP continue to
court radical homosexual groups that agitate for policies that
would destroy both of these indispensable social institutions. ...
This incessant pandering to the homosexual lobby is deeply
troubling.
Racicot later met with a group of social conservatives opposed
to gay rights legislation who were enraged over his earlier
get-together. One high-level social conservative attendee, Paul
Weyrich, posted a missive on the Free Congress Foundation's website
under the title "A Fatal
Flirtation: The GOP and the Homosexual Movement." Reported
Weyrich:
In many different ways the group stressed that if the Republican
Party drifts toward the homosexual agenda, it will alienate the
millions in the religious right while gaining very few from the
homosexual community. ...
Chairman Racicot defended his meeting with the Human Rights
Campaign by saying "I meet with anyone and everyone." Gary Bauer
said that certainly was not true because surely he would not meet
with the Ku Klux Klan. Rev. Wildmon asked if he would meet with
NAMBLA (The North American Man Boy Love Association). The chairman
was not familiar with this group, which advocates sex between men
and young boys. The chairman said he would not meet with such an
"aberrant" group. He was also asked about GLSEN, the group that is
pushing pro-homosexual and pro-transgender education programs in
the schools, including elementary schools. Again, the chairman
professed ignorance.
This couldn't have been a fun meeting for Racicot, who has good
relations with the Log Cabiners. So why did he do it? For one
thing, while Americans do not support gay marriage, most polls over
the past few years - including a 2003 Gallup
poll - suggest that a welcoming attitude toward gays can be a
winning strategy. For instance, almost 9 out of 10 Americans agree
that homosexuals should have equal rights in terms of job
opportunities.
Also, exit polls showed 4% of voters in 2000 self-identified as
gay or lesbian (and nearly 75% voted for the Democratic
Gore-Lieberman ticket). Exit polling in congressional elections
have showed a gay electorate of more than 5%. That's a larger
demographic than the Jewish vote. Even shaving just a small slice
away from Democrats could prove pivotal to cementing the GOP's
status as the majority party. Moreover, many independents are
turned off by anti-gay rhetoric, negatively viewing it as a broader
barometer of intolerance.
Yet the FRC spent a week recently using its website to expose
the Bush administration's ties to the "homosexual agenda." One
online installment was "Homosexual Lobby:
Follow the Money" - which, apparently, leads to Republican
coffers. What better example of how the religious right's paranoia
mirrors the gay left's dementia?
Whose Got the Bloc?
Here's one final, revealing example of the administration's
ongoing balancing act. In June 2003, the administration tried to
make a symbolic move to appease its Christian-right critics: the
Department of Justice decided not to allow DOJ Pride, an
association of gay employees, to hold its annual "pride month"
event on Justice Department property. The year before, Deputy
Attorney General Larry Thompson spoke briefly at the event -
outraging religious conservatives.
But the apparent move against DOJ Pride produced an outcry from
gay activists and the publicity made the Bush administration appear
intolerant, and so a partial reversal followed. But gays were
unhappy about the lack of official sponsorship, while anti-gays
were angry the event wasn't banned outright. So what's new?
Not so widely reported is that during his 2001 confirmation
hearings, Attorney General John Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary
Committee he would allow DOJ Pride to use the agency's facilities
on the same basis as its other employee groups. This followed
nominee Ashcroft's meeting with the Log Cabin Republicans, who - to
the chagrin of gay Democrats, then supported Ashcroft's
confirmation.
But politics is more about who can deliver the most for you
today than it is about honoring promises. And GOP administrations
will only make real gestures of inclusion toward gays and lesbians
when more gays and lesbians support Republicans - and thus are able
as a bloc to counter the threats of
religious right activists to tell their brethren to stay home
on election day. On the other hand, more gays and lesbians will
support the GOP only when the party stops being so clearly
identified with its religious right constituency's hostility toward
gays - an unfortunate paradox.
Clearly, the GOP is not going to win over the hearts and minds
of gay leftists, but that's not who they're aiming to attract.
Rather, it's the growing constituency of gay (and gay-friendly)
moderates, conservatives and libertarians who favor lower taxes,
economic growth, a strong military, safe streets, and limited
government interference in their private lives. Can religious
conservatives learn to live with that?
Next Up: The Big "M"
It remains to be seen if the White House can continue to reach
out to gays, however tepidly, without making the religious right
even angrier. And while, as noted, Bush has stated his view that
marriage ought to be only between a man and a woman, he's to date
held off on an outright endorsement of the proposed anti-gay
Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would
ban same-sex marriage. Passage of the FMA is now the chief priority
of many religious right "pro family" groups.
Same-sex marriage may finally force Bush off the fence. Or it
may not, since on the fence is exactly where Bush prefers to be. In
the meantime, the Bush administration's balancing act goes on, to
the chagrin of gay activists and their opposites in the religious
right - both sides convinced the President has sold his soul to the
other.
Curiouser and curiouser, indeed!