So should gays trust Bush? We’ll
just have to see....
Now that George W. Bush has met with gay Republicans,
we have to ask: Just how serious is he about courting
gay support? There are three barometers we can use to
gauge this; each is simple, clear, and completely within
Bush’s control.
For politically moderate and conservative gays who have
feared another choice between bad and worse presidential
candidates, there is finally a sliver of hope. Not even
the unseemly and petty bickering among gay Republicans
over who would attend their first-ever meeting with
a GOP presidential nominee could overshadow the significance
of the event. There is no going back. From now on, every
Republican presidential nominee will be expected to
have such meetings. Bush has also set an example for
other GOP candidates around the country who have long
refused even to talk to gay groups. With this necessary
first step completed, Bush now has a chance to prove
he actually deserves our votes.
There is one issue of threshold importance across the
gay political spectrum. As gay Republicans sat talking
to Governor Bush in Austin, they were unindicted criminals
in the eyes of the state of Texas. The state has an
antigay sodomy law. Bush said in his 1994 gubernatorial
campaign that he supports that law. I suspect he said
so out of perceived political expedience rather than
conviction, but he has never publicly retracted the
statement.
It wouldn’t be politically costly for Bush to say
he was wrong. Only a handful of states still have sodomy
laws directed solely at gay sex. And not one of them
is a state Bush will likely lose. He has an opportunity
to lead by example on this—and have it cost him
nothing.
It’s no answer for Bush to say that sodomy laws
are a matter for individual states to decide. The states-rights
dodge might have worked in South Carolina, where the
Confederate flag flies free, but Texas is Bush’s
own state.
Even prominent conservatives like Bill Kristol have
come out against these anachronistic yet stigmatizing
sodomy laws. Will Bush finally do so?
In 1998, President Clinton issued an executive order
barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation
in federal employment. It is his only substantive favor
to gay people (other than the jobs he gave to campaign
contributors). A congressional effort to prevent money
from being used to enforce the order was defeated with
the help of some House Republicans.
Conservatives generally don’t like employment antidiscrimination
laws since such measures constitute state interference
in private business. That’s why many, including
many gay conservatives, oppose the federal Employment
Non-Discrimination Act and similar state proposals around
the country to forbid discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation in private employment.
But the principle of noninterference in private employment
doesn’t apply to Clinton’s executive order.
Tax-paying citizens have a right to expect their government,
at the very least, not to practice invidious discrimination
in its own hiring and firing practices. The executive
order is nothing more than the legal guarantee of that
justified expectation.
The next president will have the unilateral power to
rescind the executive order or to keep it in place.
Will Bush keep the policy?
In June, the Texas GOP will hold its biennial state
convention in Houston. In 1996 and again in 1998, the
state party refused to grant gay Republicans information
booth space at the convention. To justify their decision,
party leaders cited the state’s antigay sodomy
law—the same law Bush has supported—and publicly
compared homosexuals to pedophiles. (Full disclosure:
I was president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Texas
in 1996, when the group initiated an ultimately unsuccessful
lawsuit against the state GOP for reneging on its contract
to provide a booth. In 1998, I helped organize a rally
outside the convention hall to protest the decision
that year.)
On both occasions, Bush was silent about his party’s
decision to exclude gays. He did denounce the party’s
"name-calling" in 1998, but he never intervened
to ensure actual access to the convention itself. Now
it seems Texas GOP leaders are willing to risk another
embarrassing and needless public confrontation with
Log Cabin by denying the group a booth again this year.
Bush has tried to avoid taking a stand on the issue
by saying it’s an internal matter for state party
leaders, not the governor, to decide. But that’s
hogwash. If the Texas GOP decided to exclude African-Americans,
Latinos, or women, Bush wouldn’t remain mute. As
the national party’s presidential nominee, Bush
can get just about whatever he wants at his own state
party’s convention. Even if he can’t persuade
Texas GOP leaders to change their minds, he can at least
say publicly that exclusion is wrong.
If Bush is not willing to stand up to the far right
over this, it’s doubtful he can be trusted to stand
up to them on matters of far greater significance. Will
Bush support the effort of gay Republicans to have a
simple information booth at the Texas state convention?
There are many other high-profile policy issues directly
affecting gays this year, including federal hate crimes
legislation and the military’s ban on openly gay
personnel. But none seems as clear-cut as the sodomy
law, the executive order, and the booth. These may be
small matters in the grand scheme of things, but Bush’s
handling of them will say a lot about the kind of president
he would be. We’ll be watching.
