WASHINGTON — David Catania used to display a photograph on a side table in his office, in which President Bush, standing next to First Lady Laura Bush, spread his arms wide to embrace Catania on one side and his partner, Brian, on the other.
But last month when Bush endorsed a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, Catania felt betrayed. "To enshrine us as second-class citizens is a deal breaker," he said. "My partner and I have been to Crawford. The president was so gracious to Brian and me. I don't believe in my heart for a minute this is something he wants to do."
Now, the photo lies face down in a bottom drawer, a symbol of the disconnect between a 36-year-old Republican councilman in the nation's capital and a conservative president juggling the demands of disparate constituencies, from conservative Christians who oppose gay marriage to moderates offended by intolerance.
For Catania and other gay Republicans, the issue of same-sex marriage -- thrust center stage by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the mayor of San Francisco -- has provoked an identity crisis. Conservative on fiscal and foreign policy, they are not natural Democrats. But they say they are wounded, feeling rejected by their own GOP family.
"I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach," said Mark Mead of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay organization. He said the arguments against gay marriage reminded him of the efforts to block interracial marriage more than 30 years ago, when he was growing up in Mississippi. "Those words of intolerance ring as hollow and untrue today as they did then," Mead said.
The raw emotion kicked up by the issue is affecting the presidential campaign in ways that no one anticipated. Ever since Bush endorsed a ban on same-sex unions, money has been pouring in to gay rights groups in record amounts.
The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which has recruited gay political candidates and raised money for them since 1991, reports a 200% increase in contributions to gay and lesbian candidates. The Log Cabin Republicans, which is fighting the ban, reports it is getting hundreds of thousands of dollars a week in donations.
