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| Log Cabin Republicans plan to extend Patrick Guerriero’s contract
for two years, sources say, despite some discontent over the group’s open
defiance of President Bush. (File photo by Luis Gomez)
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Log Cabin Republicans
1607 17th St. NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-347-5306
www.logcabin.org
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: LOU CHIBBARO JR. COMMENTS
The board of directors of the national gay group Log Cabin Republicans is
renewing the group’s contract for Executive director Patrick Guerriero for at
least two more years after praising his leadership skills and dismissing critics
who claim he has been too adversarial toward President Bush.
“We have full confidence in Patrick,” said Bill Brownson, a Columbus, Ohio,
GOP activist who chairs the Log Cabin board.
Brownson and two LCR board members from Washington, D.C. — Tim Schoeffler,
the board’s vice chair, and Bob Kabel, a former Reagan administration official
— said the board believes Guerriero has done an excellent job in leading the
group through an election year minefield in which Log Cabin chose not to endorse
a sitting GOP president.
Guerriero began his job as LCR director in 2003 after serving as a mayor and
member of the state legislature in Massachusetts. Gay activists praised him
during his first year at Log Cabin for promoting cooperation and civility between
gay Democrats and Gay Republicans and rebuilding LCR’s relationships with non-partisan
gay rights groups.
His arrival in D.C. came at a time when activists expected battle lines to
heat up between gays in opposing parties.
During his first months as Log Cabin chief, Guerriero has said, he expected
to continue Log Cabin’s cordial relationship with a Republican administration
that had appointed a gay ambassador and broke ground by naming two successive
openly gay White House AIDS czars.
Things changed earlier this year when Bush moved closer to backing a constitutional
ban on gay marriage. Log Cabin leaders, expressing hope that Bush would hold
off on endorsing a constitutional amendment, declared they viewed the issue
as a “line in the sand” and warned they would withdraw support for the administration
if the president crossed that line.
The Log Cabin board voted 22 to 2 in early September to withhold the group’s
endorsement of Bush following the president’s endorsement and active support
for the marriage amendment, which failed despite support from GOP leadership
in both the U.S. House and Senate.
Most of the organization’s members, including its more than 40 chapters throughout
the country, have been supportive of the non-endorsement decision, Brownson
said.
But in recent weeks, sources familiar with the Log Cabin group have reported
learning of discontent among the ranks of a small but influential corps of gay
Republicans who believe Guerriero has gone beyond the board’s non-endorsement
mandate by harshly criticizing the president in television appearances and newspaper
commentaries.
The sources, who agreed to be interviewed only on condition that their identities
be withheld, said Guerriero and his top lieutenant, Political Director Christopher
Barron, have “aided and abetted” Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry
through their media criticism of the president.
Guerriero and Barron have said they accepted invitations to appear on television
news programs to promote their efforts to defeat the Federal Marriage Amendment,
the proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage. Log Cabin paid for a series
of television ads opposing the legislation.
Some of the critics have circulated anonymous e-mail messages claiming that
Barron “worked” for Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards, the
senator from North Carolina, before Guerriero hired him at LCR.
Barron said he supported Edwards’ 1998 Senate campaign as a Republican when
Edwards challenged incumbent Loach Faircloth, who was well known as a strident
opponent of gay civil rights.
Barron said he also submitted a written testimonial praising Edwards on a Web
site at the time Edwards announced his candidacy for president in 2003. At no
time was he ever a member of Edwards’ campaign staff, Barron said.
 Bob
Kabel, of the Log Cabin Republicans board of directors, praised
Patrick Guerriero’s leadership during a difficult period for the gay GOP
organization. |
Brownson disputes claims by LCR critics that Barron failed to disclose his
association with Edwards when the LCR board reviewed his application to become
political director. He called Barron a loyal Republican who backed Edwards on
the “principled” grounds that Barron could not support someone hostile to gay
rights.
Log Cabin’s announcement last week that it had filed suit in federal court against
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ...
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