PLACE A CLASSIFIED AD  |  WHERE TO FIND THE BLADE    |   WASHBLADE ON MYSPACE    |   RSS  
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2008
 
Please login or create a new account
  ?
Holiday Gift Guide - Issue One
HOME
CLASSIFIEDS
AUTO GUIDE

THE LATEST
BLADEWIRE
BLADEBLOG
BLOGWATCH
NEWS
 LOCAL
 NATIONAL
 WORLD NEWS
 VIEWPOINT
 ENTERTAINMENT
 ECLIPSE
 OUT IN DC
 CALENDARS
 FITNESS BY GENRE
 BITCH SESSION














EMAIL UPDATES
New to email
updates? Then click here to find out more.
email address

subscribe
unsubscribe
I have read and agree to our terms
and conditions
.


ADVERTISING
GENERAL INFO
E-EDITION
MARKETING

ABOUT US
ABOUT THE BLADE
MASTHEAD
EMPLOYMENT

 

 

 


Rep. Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham (R-Calif.) decried the presence of ‘homos in the military’ on the floor of Congress in 1995. He matches many of the details of a story told by HRC’s Elizabeth Birch about a member of Congress who seemed to be questioning his sexual orientation.


MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR
LOU CHIBBARO JR.





Printer-friendly Version

Letter to the Editor

Sound Off about this article







 

MORE NATIONAL

‘Never give up’
Protesters hit the streets as Prop 8 challenged in court

Gay couples married in Calif. speak out on Prop 8
‘We all deserve the rights and dignities that come with marriage’

Gay volunteers helped Obama in battlegrounds
Obama Pride groups mushroomed into army of workers

Will Obama name gay DNC head?
Hildebrand a possible successor to Dean; Nunn assisting with Pentagon transition

National news in brief
Foley breaks silence on scandal


NATIONAL

Birch denies speech outed anti-gay congressman
‘Duke’ Cunningham denies meeting Birch or questioning whether he is gay

LOU CHIBBARO JR.
Friday, July 04, 2003

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.


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 said.

Regardless of whom she referenced, Birch said, the subject of her story never actually said outright that he was gay, Birch told the Blade. The person in question merely inquired about how someone knows he or she is homosexual, Birch said.

“There was more than one person who has expressed curiosity about being gay,” Birch said. “I scrambled the facts. I created a composite.”

Added Birch, “You have a multitude of experiences in Congress. I was teaching a lesson about how difficult it is to grapple with this issue.”

A full transcript of Birch’s remarks can ...

continued on next page


1  |  2  |  3

 

email   password
The following comments were posted by our readers and were not edited by the Washington Blade.  We ask that you treat others with respect; any post deemed offensive will be removed.


 

national | local | world | arts | classifieds | real estate | about us

© 2008 | A Window Media LLC Publication | Privacy Policy