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A Log Cabin divided
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April 6, 2000 | WASHINGTON -- The questions, however, are about Bush's political orientation, because of his having waged a fairly public -- and yet thoroughly confusing -- feud with the Log Cabin Republicans, the leading gay and lesbian Republican organization. In the process, Bush has been lambasted for being anti-gay -- or, at the very least, indifferent to the concerns of the gay community. And yet there are prominent gay supporters of Bush -- like Carl Schmid, former president of the D.C. Chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans and a former board member of the national Log Cabin Republicans, Washington City Councilman David Catania and public relations executive Charles Francis -- who have hope for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee and who have been working behind the scenes to broker a meeting with Bush. "We'll be meeting in the near future and there will be a good discussion of these issues," like nondiscrimination and gay adoption, Schmid says.
Confirms (kinda) Bush spokesman Scott McClellan: "Gov. Bush may meet with supporters who are gay and also members of local Log Cabin organizations and he welcomes their support." It's McClellan's emphasis on local Log Cabin organizations that's significant. To Schmid and several other pro-Bush gays, the national LCR has been going about the process of engaging Bush all wrong. LCR has run to the media instead of engaging in an educational dialogue with the Bush campaign, Schmid says. LCR leaders "did everything they could to elect [Arizona Sen.] John McCain -- they raised money for him, they attacked Bush [in the media] over and over," Schmid says. And eventually, they even took out attack ads against Bush. In the week before Super Tuesday, March 7, LCR spent $20,000 on radio ads that aired in Los Angeles, New York and Massachusetts. "I was happy to hear George W. Bush say he's a uniter, not a divider," a female voice says. "But then he said he would not meet with gay Republicans, and worse, he wouldn't hire them. Then Bush went to Bob Jones University ... and he aligned himself with Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. I am sorry -- that doesn't build the kind of Republican Party that wins elections. Do we have to lose our third presidential race in a row because our candidate has pandered to the far right?" The Wisconsin chapter of LCR objected to the anti-Bush ads -- which, according to Schmid and others, reflects how the national LCR has been at odds with state chapters over the Bush issue. The Wisconsin chapter was even put on probation by the national board. Bob Stears, chairman of the national LCR board, called for the charters of three Wisconsin LCR locals to be made "conditional" until members from them met with the national board of directors twice before Jan. 31, 2001, and agreed not to use the name "Log Cabin Republicans" in any activity having to do with the presidential election. "To publicly criticize the National Board ... is inappropriate," Stears said in a letter to LCR members. "The most important thing is to set up an environment of mutual respect and trust between the governor and the gay community," says David Greer, state chairman of the Pennsylvania LCR. Greer says that the national LCR should have been working behind the scenes to educate Bush instead of blasting him in front of the media, God and everyone. Such is "part of being a team player when you are -- as we are -- part of a partisan organization. Governor Bush's relationship with the gay and lesbian community shouldn't be entirely characterized by his relationship to one organization." "These are very serious issues," says Schmid, who has sat on the national board of the Human Rights Campaign, a nonpartisan group that lobbies for gay and lesbian rights, and is an alternate Bush delegate for this year's Republican Convention. "You need to build trust to discuss these issues. And right now there is no trust between Bush and the national office of the Log Cabin Republicans." But other gay activists argue that it's not the national Log Cabin Republicans who are responsible for straining the relationship. David Smith, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, agrees the LCR's radio ads against Bush were a mistake. "They alienated the Bush campaign even further than it had been alienated before," he says. But, Smith continues, it's easy to understand why they did so: "Bush has been decisively anti-gay throughout this campaign."
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