Jul 04, 2003  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

It began as a remarkable vignette about a virulently anti-gay congressman who reached out in private to gay activists with questions about how people know if they are gay. But last month, retold before an audience of nearly 200 at a Gay Pride town hall meeting, a remembered encounter from eight years ago has raised questions about whether the leader of this country’s largest gay rights organization has on several occasions effectively outed a member of Congress.

The most recent occasion was a Gay Pride forum on June 3, where a panel of gay rights leaders was addressing whether there was “a gay agenda.” Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, began her presentation, which focused in part on reaching out to gay rights foes, with an example about a private meeting she and an HRC colleague had in 1995 with an unnamed conservative Republican congressman who opposes gay rights.

The congressman startled her, Birch said, when he ushered his staff members out of his Capitol Hill office, closed the door, and asked Birch and Daniel Zingale, then HRC’s political director, just how it was that they came to know that they are gay.

“You know, how do you know you’re that way?” Birch quoted the congressman as asking.

In hushed tones, Birch told the audience that the congressman leaned back against his desk and revealed that he was asking the question because he had “loved men” in his past.

“[T]his guy’s got three tours in Vietnam, and there were a lot of guns on the wall,” Birch told the audience, which laughed in response. “Whips and stuff like that. … I looked at Daniel and I went, ‘Oh my God.’”

Birch described how she and Zingale told the congressman how they and other gay people struggle with their own feelings until they come to terms with who they are and affirm to themselves that they’re gay.

“And finally, he said, ‘Because I’ve loved men,’” Birch recalled the congressman saying. “And I said, ‘Was that in a military setting?’” Again, the audience laughed, acknowledging how awkward the conversation was for Birch and Zingale. “He said yes,” Birch recalled. “He said, ‘Yes indeed, on the field of battle, but I’ve also loved men.’”

Birch did not identify the congressman but said the meeting took place a short time after the congressman created a controversy in 1995 when he referred to gays as “homos” on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Media reports and other background facts indicate that Congressman Randall “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.), an archconservative from San Diego, fits many of the details in Birch’s story.

The news media in San Diego reported at that time that in a speech on the floor of the House, Cunningham decried the presence of “homos” in the military. He appears to be the only member of the House to call gays “homos” on the House floor at that time, and most likely at any time since then, according to a review of news media reports and the Congressional Record.

Two gay Democratic activists in San Diego this week confirmed that Birch told members of that city’s gay Democratic club a nearly identical story in 1996, and on that occasion directly identified Cunningham as the congressman in question.

trong>Congressman denies meeting
Harmony Allen, Cunningham’s press secretary, said Cunningham never met with Birch and never made any such comments about gays or his feelings toward men.

“He has never had a conversation with that woman,” Allen said. “The meeting did not take place.” Allen added, “He is a heterosexual.”

Birch has since refused to comment about whether she has met with Cunningham and whether she based her story on Cunningham’s private comments to her and Zingale. She said she never reveals the identities or remarks made by members of Congress in private meetings.

Zingale said he had no recollection of a meeting with both Cunningham and Birch.

Allen said several of the facts in Birch’s story don’t fit Cunningham’s background. Birch said the congressman in question had five children, while Cunningham has three children, Allen said. Birch noted that the congressman in her story served three tours in Vietnam. Cunningham, a decorated fighter pilot and acclaimed pilot instructor, served just two tours, according to Allen.

“He never had guns on his walls,” Allen ...