Apr 02, 2004  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

One week after his communications director said he would not disclose his position on a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) said through a high level assistant this week that he now plans to vote against such an amendment.

“He does not support it,” said Liz Nicholson, Foley’s deputy chief of staff. “He has been troubled by it ever since it came up some years ago,” Nicholson said. “Yes, he would vote against it.”

Nicholson’s statement of Foley’s position comes one week after his communications director, Trey Ditto, told the Blade that Foley was “troubled” over the proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage but would not disclose whether he would vote for or against it until it reached the House floor.

“We don’t have any legislation before us,” Ditto said in a March 22 phone interview. “We will cross that bridge when the legislation is actually before us.”

Foley has received strong support over the years from gay Republicans, who have praised him for co-sponsoring gay civil rights and hate crimes legislation.

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.) introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage into the House earlier this year. Last week, Musgrave reintroduced the Federal Marriage Amendment with a change in wording that she said would clarify her intent to prevent it from barring state legislatures from approving civil unions.

Asked why Foley believed the amendment isn’t already before the House, Ditto did not respond directly, saying only, “We’re going to wait until the legislation is before us.”

Added Ditto, “Once the final legislation to vote on is ready is when we will look at this further. Until then, he is keeping his eye on it. He is troubled by anything that has to do with opening up the Constitution.”

Nicholson, who said she has served on Foley’s staff for seven years, said Ditto is “new on the job” and may not have had a full understanding of Foley’s position on the issue. Ditto replaced Foley’s 10-year veteran communications director Kirk Fordham, who left Foley’s staff earlier this year to work on the Senate campaign of Republican Mel Martinez.

Martinez, who served as President Bush’s Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, is running for the seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.). Martinez has said he supports the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage introduced by Musgrave, known as the Federal Marriage Amendment.

According to Nicholson, Foley kept a low profile on the Musgrave amendment because it appeared to be languishing in committee, with little support, for more than a year.

“It got real quiet for a while,” said Nicholson. “After San Francisco, people started pushing it again,” she said, referring to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

“When it started to move, he said he could not support it,” Nicholson said. “It was not the right thing to do.”

Foley is a co-sponsor of separate bills that would ban employment discrimination against gays and give the federal government authority to prosecute anti-gay hate crimes.

Foley later dropped out of the Senate race. His withdrawal came several months after an alternative newspaper in West Palm Beach reported that Foley is gay.

Shortly after the Washington Blade reported the allegations in the West Palm paper, Foley held a press conference with mainstream Florida newspapers announcing that he would not answer questions regarding his sexual orientation. He has denounced stories about his alleged homosexuality as the “revolting and unforgivable” work of “rumor mongerers.”

But when Foley dropped out of the race, he cited his father’s illness, rather than the gay issue, as his reason for withdrawing from the race. At the time of his withdrawal, Foley had a substantial fund-raising lead over his opponents.

Broward LCR lobbies Foley
A lobbying effort by members of the Broward Log Cabin Republicans may have helped to persuade Foley to come out against the proposed amendment.

“You can be sure that Log Cabin has not been sitting on its hands about this,” said Andy Eddy, Broward LCR board chair and director of communications. “Everyone in Log Cabin has been approaching him and talking to him about this.”

Eddy said he thinks the personal appeals may have persuaded Foley to come down off the fence on the constitutional amendment issue. “A lot of people have to think this out, especially around election time,” Eddy said.

Michael Albetta, president of the Dolphin Democrats, a South Florida gay Democratic club, compared Foley’s earlier silence on the marriage amendment to “prominent Jews in the United States who remained ...