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LOU CHIBBARO JR.
Friday, March 05, 2004
A New York City real estate developer who became one of President Bush’s
most visible openly gay appointees resigned in protest last week from his post
as vice chair of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts after the president endorsed
a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
“In light of the president’s support for the Federal Marriage
Amendment, I could no longer continue serving the administration, given the
impact of that proposed amendment on me and my family, should it ever become
law,” Donald A. Capoccia said.
Capoccia, president of the Manhattan-based BFC Construction Corp., has been
a longtime Republican Party contributor and a strong supporter of the Log Cabin
Republicans, a national gay GOP group with chapters in New York and other states.
Capoccia also serves as co-chair of the Republican Unity Coalition, which bills
itself as a gay-straight alliance of Republican Party leaders who favor equal
rights for gays.
Capoccia’s resignation comes at a time when gay Republicans — especially
those working in the Bush administration, both in and out of the closet — have
been shaken over Bush’s decision to back a constitutional ban on gay
marriage, said Kevin Ivers, former political director of the Log Cabin group.
Although they have long brushed aside attacks by gay Democrats for working
for a Republican president, Ivers said, gays working in the administration
must now reconcile their longstanding loyalty to Bush while weighing their
deep concern over his decision to back an amendment they believe would enshrine
anti-gay prejudice into the U.S. Constitution.
“The other day, people were going along in their careers,” Ivers
said. “Today, they are facing a gigantic moral dilemma.”
According to Ivers and other gay Republican insiders, a number of closeted
gays faced with this dilemma work in important jobs at the White House.
“I don’t think people want to necessarily end their careers,” Ivers
said. “But some of them are wondering, ‘What am I doing here?’”
Two gay Republican leaders who asked that question in the past week announced
their decision to leave their party.
John Farina, a member of the executive committee of the Cuyahoga County, Ohio,
Republican Committee, which covers the City of Cleveland; and Mark Brostoff,
a two-time candidate for city council and Republican precinct representative
in Bloomington, Ind., submitted letters to local GOP leaders declaring their
resignation from the party. Both cited the president’s decision to endorse
a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as their reason.
“The party has been overtaken, both nationally and statewide, by hard
right social conservatives that seem hell bent on moving the country in reverse
on civil rights,” Farina said in his resignation letter.
Brostoff told the Indianapolis Star that he supports the overall philosophy
of the Republican Party and liked working with his local Republican colleagues.
“But there’s a certain time in your life when you realize there
are issues that are bigger than politics,” the Star-Tribune quoted him
as saying.
Gay Republican activist David Greer said he intends to remain in his post
as Bush administration appointee to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
But Greer said he would speak out strongly against the Federal Marriage Amendment.
He predicted Bush would be hurt rather than helped in the upcoming election
because of his call for a constitutional amendment.
Greer, as president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Philadelphia in 2000,
helped organize a gay host committee to welcome Bush and the GOP leaders to
that city, where the 2000 Republican National Convention was held. Greer and
Capoccia were both members of the so-called “Austin 12” gay GOP
activists who met with Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign.
Now, four years later, Greer said, the president’s endorsement of the
FMA has effectively ended gay support for Bush and would most likely result
in a near “wipe out” of the 1 million gay votes that Bush received
in the 2000 election.
“For myself, this is a line in the sand that can’t be crossed,” Greer
said. “Any gay Republican who says this is no big deal, that the amendment
can’t be passed, is being disingenuous.”
Added Greer, “If there is one reason for gay Republicans to exist, it
is this one moment in time. We must stand up and say this is wrong for this
party and this is wrong for this president.”
Gay public relations executive Charles Francis, the Bush family friend who
played the lead role in founding the RUC in 2001, said the group is in “profound
disagreement” with the president’s decision to back the FMA. Francis
said the RUC leadership, which includes former U.S. Sen. Allen Simpson (R-Wyo.),
has yet to decide whether to endorse Bush’s re-election.
“We will not defend or gloss this over,” he said. “We have
a process for endorsements that we have to go through. But we imagine the gay
Republican vote [for Bush] is gone. One million votes gone,” Francis
said.
Patrick Guerriero, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, last week joined
other national gay rights leaders in denouncing the president’s decision
to support a marriage amendment, saying Bush had become a “divider” rather
than a “uniter.”
This week, Guerriero said the atmosphere in LCR’s Washington, D.C. headquarters
has been transformed in less than a week from one of dismay and pessimism to
an upbeat beehive of activity, with a flood of donations, new members and calls
of support from gay-supportive politicians.
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is one of a number of high-profile
Republicans who have denounced efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution to
ban gay marriage. (AP photo) |
“We have had more e-mail traffic and more contributions in a single
week than we’ve had for as long as anyone can remember,” Guerriero
said. “New chapters are forming. It’s having a real energizing
effect on the organization.”
Guerriero said morale among gay Republicans was boosted in the past week when
Gov. George Pataki of New York and Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger of California — both
Republicans — announced their opposition to the FMA. Also joining what
Guerriero calls a growing chorus of opposition to the amendment was former
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
Giuliani, who has emerged as a national hero for his role in responding to
the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on New York, is being positioned by Republican
leaders as the “poster child” of the Republican National Convention,
which is set to open in New York City in August.
But in a development gay Republicans would not have predicted just a few months
earlier, Cook said, New York gay Republicans have declined Pataki’s invitation
to become Bush delegates to the Republican Convention. Among those who have
turned down an invitation to become a delegate is openly gay GOP Mayor Don
Stewart of Plattsburg, N.Y.
“We’ll have a presence inside and outside the convention hall,” Cook
said. “But a lot of gays will be absent as delegates by their own accord.”
Former U.S. Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.), who is gay, said he supports efforts
by gay Republicans to speak out forcefully against the president’s decision
to back an anti-gay constitutional amendment. However, Gunderson cautions gay
Republicans against overreacting.
“I think it’s a waiting game,” said Gunderson, who is a
partner in D.C. area political consulting firm. “The real question is,
is the president giving just rhetorical support in response to conservative
constituency? Or will there be a strong, concerted legislative effort to push
this?”
Gunderson noted that in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan gave mostly rhetorical
rather than legislative support to the pro-life movement on abortion related
issues. He said Bush might be following Reagan’s playbook on the gay
marriage issue.
“It’s March. It was February when he did this,” Gunderson
said of Bush’s support for the FMA. “Let’s see where they
go on this.”
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