Charles Stadtlander has a clear opinion about former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley that he says other gay Republicans share: If the Florida Republican is found guilty of sexual harassment of teenage pages on Capitol Hill, he said, “he should rot in jail for a long, long time.”
Foley resigned after being confrounted with sexually explicit e-mails and instant messages he sent to congressional pages. Within the first week of his resignation, however, representatives of right-wing religious organizations, such as World Net Daily writer Linda Harvey, labeled Foley’s actions “typical behavior for homosexuals.” Acidic comments also came from Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who appeared on MSNBC’s “Hardball” to declare that the only way to prevent similar episodes is to weed homosexuals out of the Republican Party.
“I think it’s despicable,” said Stadtlander, president of the St. Louis chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans, or LCR, a national organization of gay Republicans based in Washington, D.C. “This is about a bad man who made sexual advances toward minors, not about gays or conservatives. We’re trying to overcome this by establishing that pedophiles in most cases are the complete opposite: straight white men.”
Anti-gay rhetoric in the wake of the Foley scandal is another affront to the LCR, which has struggled to maintain ties to its party since the GOP began leaning further to the right on social issues under the Bush administration.
Patrick Sammon, executive vice president of the LCR, said there’s no denying that a vocal minority of Republicans is committed to wiping gays out of the GOP.
“We’re the first to admit the party isn’t (where) it needs to be with gay and lesbian policy,” said Sammon. “We have to engage those people and stand up in our own party with unified integrity to change their minds.”
Like most gay Republicans, Sammon is loyal to traditional GOP values: restricted fiscal policy, strong national defense and limited government influence. But the Republican platform shift toward social conservatism with a religious slant puts his loyalty at risk.
Republicans’ anti-gay initiatives have spurred their often-overlooked gay minority to action. LCR membership rocketed nationwide to 20,000 this year, up from 3,500 in 2003. Suddenly, gay Republicans are accepting public scrutiny of their sexual orientation in exchange for a chance to redirect the party’s platform.
“A lot of gay conservatives who were never involved before were frustrated by the party’s use of anti-gay issues for political gain,” Sammon said. “They got angry, so they got involved.”
One of the biggest red flags for gay Republicans was the GOP push for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. President Bush quickly backed the amendment in a 2000 news conference, saying, “The union of a man and a woman is the most enduring human institution.”
In the ensuing years, a wave of state ballot issues prohibiting gay marriage passed.
U.S. Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., has sided with Bush, endorsing amendments to the federal and state constitutions to ban gay marriage. Talent spokesman Richard Chrismer didn’t return phone calls about Talent’s past or current stances on gay issues.
“(Talent) has been very open about his beliefs that gay marriage goes against his values and the values of the country,” Stadtlander said. “I can’t really speak for the nation, but I think most people across the country believe Sen. Talent, that he represents that sliver of ultra-conservatives who use religion to divide.”
The belief that gay unions damage traditional family structures has created what Bill Jenkins, secretary of the St. Louis chapter of the LCR, calls a “daily battle” for gays to prove themselves as morally acceptable.
“As a gay man who’s out and open, I just recognize the fact that there are groups looking for any reason to pass judgment on my gayness,” Jenkins said. “I’m aware of the perception of right-wing groups. If you’re a controversial figure, then people will be scrutinizing you. As I see it, the only real way to change that is through gay people’s behavior and creating a long-term change of perception.”
Instigating long-term change is at the core of the LCR’s new grassroots movement to build communication with local leaders and the media. Chapters in every state are trying to spread the message that gays are taxpaying members of society, that they deserve legal equality and that they should have equal status in the Republican Party.
“There’s a stigma that if you’re gay, you have to be a Democrat, you have to be anti-Iraq, you have to be pro-choice,” Stadtlander said. “Well, I’m part of an organization with thousands and thousands of members who simply don’t buy into that.”
LCR members are offering fellow Republicans open invitations to find common ground. Most Republicans come to accept Stadtlander’s sexual orientation if they sit down and discuss other political issues with him, he said.
One advantage LCR members have is society’s changing perspective toward gays. As Americans move closer to accepting gays and lesbians as equal citizens, Jenkins said, elected officials who want to keep their jobs will move to match popular opinion.
“If you compare (today’s public opinion) to 15 years ago, which is not that long ago, the general public acceptance of gays and lesbians has dramatically improved,” Jenkins said, noting that newspapers rarely acknowledged homosexuality before 1992, when Clinton addressed the issue of gays in the military. Now, homosexuality is becoming part of mainstream American pop culture.
“I mean, ‘Will and Grace’? Hell, no way you’d have had that in 1991,” Jenkins said of the situation comedy featuring a lead character who is gay. “Now you can’t turn on a TV show without gay characters. That’s how fast society’s perception changes. Things may have gotten worse in our own party, but in general, society has opened up.”
That societal shift and the LCR’s lobbying might be responsible for the handful of Republican leaders who have facilitated pro-gay legislation. Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell, a Republican, signed a bill in 2005 to make Connecticut the second state to establish civil unions for same-sex couples. In the same month, Indianapolis passed an anti-discrimination law sponsored by a Republican councilman to protect gays and lesbians in the workplace. Similar legislation that would have applied statewide in Indiana, however, was defeated later in 2005.
Some Missouri Republicans seem open to better communication at least. Republican legislators, including Carl Bearden, Michael Gibbons and Sherman Parker, have visited the St. Louis LCR in recent months, as has former U.S. Sen. John Danforth. Their visits came during a time when the GOP was analyzing public opinion to plan its election campaigns.
“I think the party leadership realized if they didn’t show a more moderate social platform, it was going to kill them in the midterm elections,” Jenkins said. “Some people may say that’s just politics, but that’s a start.”
State Rep. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, said she visited a St. Louis LCR meeting early this year because she was invited, not as a public relations move. She and the LCR members engaged in lively debate about education, she said, broaching the issue of whether gay and lesbian students should receive special treatment in public schools.
“I found gay Log Cabin Republicans were very aligned with where I am on issues,” she said.
Still, progress is slow. Jenkins said that while Missouri LCR members have discussed hopes for a state law preventing discrimination against gays in the workplace, they expect it will be four or five years before the GOP would push or introduce such legislation in Missouri.
“I think midterm elections are going to say a lot,” Jenkins said. “The Republican Party will probably lose some seats, and that will be somewhat of a wake-up call for the party to moderate social issues.”
Further progress, however, depends on gay Republicans’ ability to avoid debacles that smudge their reputations.
“Herein lies the challenge: If you’re going to be brave and openly gay, you have to watch yourself more,” Jenkins said. “Straight Republicans have nothing to prove. We do.”