Gay Republicans Torn Over Endorsing Bush Reelection
PALM SPRINGS — Leaders of the Republican Party's most prominent gay organization on Saturday grappled with whether to support President Bush's reelection and raised more money for a television advertisement opposing a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.
During the annual convention of the Log Cabin Republicans, attendees watched the ad that features footage of Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a lesbian daughter, saying during a debate in the 2000 campaign that the states, not the federal government, should regulate marriage.
The 30-second spot -- the centerpiece of the campaign by the Log Cabin group to thwart the constitutional amendment that Bush has endorsed -- has aired during the last month in Sacramento and the capitals of seven other states. It has received its heaviest airplay in Washington, where the amendment would first have to clear both houses of Congress by two-thirds votes before being sent to the states for ratification.
Over the weekend, it ran in Miami, where a gathering of the considerably more socially conservative Southern Republican Leadership Conference was taking place.
So far, $800,000 has been raised to pay for the ad's broadcast, said Log Cabin communications director Patrick Sammon, including $100,000 from former Rep. Michael Huffington (R-Santa Barbara).
Huffington narrowly lost a 1994 race against Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and a few years later publicly revealed he was bisexual. On Saturday, in one of his first public appearances on behalf of a gay cause, he offered another $100,000 if Log Cabin members would match his donation within 10 days.
Some of the 300 convention participants wrote checks on the spot.
The group backed Bush in his 2000 campaign and hoped to gain more clout in the GOP during his administration. But the president's support for the amendment to outlaw gay marriage has provoked Log Cabin in a way that other gay civil rights matters have not and cast doubt on whether the group would back Bush this year.
During a lively session Saturday designed to help the group's national board members decide how to proceed on the endorsement question, emotions ran high.
As conservatives, many said they believe in the institution of marriage as a force for social stability; as gays, they abhor the idea that they would be constitutionally excluded from exercising a right available to other Americans.
