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| Smiling in happier times, Log Cabin Republican Executive Director Patrick
Guerriero(left) said this week that gays within the party are angry and energized over
the president’s endorsement of a Federal Marriage Amendment. Charles
Francis(right), founder of the gay-straight Republican Unity Coalition, said the move
will cost Bush a million gay votes. (Photo by Luis Gomez)
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Log Cabin Republicans
1607 17th St N.W.
Washington, DC 20009
202-347-5306
www.lcr.org
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: LOU CHIBBARO JR. COMMENTS
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. ...
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