Mel Martinez is one of eight Republicans seeking to be that party’s nominee
for the U.S. Senate seat in Florida. He has used anti-gay messages in radio ads
to win support of social conservatives. (Photo by AP)
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MUBARAK DAHIR
Friday, July 16, 2004
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — On a humid day in Tampa
last month, John Dowless could be seen passing out cards at Landry’s Seafood
House to a group of about 40 of Florida’s most conservative religious leaders,
including members of Family First of Tampa and the Pinellas Crisis Pregnancy
Center, an anti-abortion group.
Dowless arranged the lunch on behalf of Mel Martinez, the former housing secretary
who is now one of eight Republican candidates trying to get his party’s nomination
for the U.S. Senate race this fall.
As Martinez railed against the threat of same-sex marriages to the traditional
family, Dowless handed out cards to the religious leaders imploring them to “pray
for Mel Martinez” and to get involved in his campaign.
Dowless was just doing his job. Formerly the executive director of the Christian
Coalition of Florida, Dowless is now a private political consultant in Orlando.
Because of Dowless’ strong connections to the state’s conservative religious
groups, Martinez hired him several months ago to help the campaign reach out
to conservative Christians.
“My role is organizing grassroots stuff for them,” particularly among conservative
Christians, Dowless said.
In a crowded primary field, many Republican candidates in Florida, including
Martinez, are angling to get voter attention by running as far as possible
to the right.
Martinez in particular has sought to distinguish himself as the candidate
perhaps most vocal against gay rights, including running a statewide radio
ad encouraging the Senate to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment, and attacking
one of his opponents for supporting hate crimes laws that would include protections
based on sexual orientation.
Ironically, at least two powerful men working for the Martinez campaign are
gay.
One of them is John Dowless, the political consultant. The other is Kirk Fordham,
who is employed as Martinez’s finance director.
It was about 10 p.m. on the evening of April 2 when a man called “Sam” entered
the Lava Lounge, a gay bar in Orlando.
Sam, a gay resident of Washington, D.C., was in Orlando on business, and went
out to meet a friend for drinks. After ordering a beer, Sam bumped into a former
colleague from Washington, someone he describes as “a well-placed political
operative.”
When Sam asked the man how he liked working in Florida, the man replied that
politics in the state was “weird.”
How so?” Sam wanted to know.
“He began telling me about this guy who used to be the head of the Christian
Coalition,” Sam said. “He said the guy is gay and out, and goes to the gay
bars all the time, but is involved in all this anti-gay political campaigning.
That struck me as incredibly hypocritical.”
Twenty minutes later, John Dowless walked into the Lava Lounge.
“The guy I used to know from D.C. pointed Dowless out to me, and I made it
a point to go over and meet him,” Sam said. “I was just so intrigued that someone
could play both sides of the fence this way.”
Dowless identified himself as gay and conflicted about how to reconcile his
sexual orientation with his religion and his political beliefs, according to
Sam, whose account of Dowless’ statements that evening was witnessed by a Washington
Blade editor, who was also present.
Sam describes Dowless as handsome and affable, a person who was easy to meet
and talk to.
“We talked about his work, but we talked a lot more about religion,” Sam said.
“I am a fairly devout Christian myself, and I was interested in why he felt
being Christian and gay were so completely incompatible,” Sam said. “He was
very adamant that it just wasn’t possible to be both, in his understanding.”
After a few drinks at the Lava Lounge, Sam jumped into his rental car and
followed Dowless’ silver SUV to Southern Nights, another gay bar in Orlando,
where the two men continued their conversation. All together, they spent approximately
two hours speaking about religion and homosexuality that night, Sam said.
“When he admitted that he uses homosexuality as a weapon to win campaigns,
I got the feeling this guy was not just struggling with the issue of being
gay and Christian,” Sam said. “I felt maybe he’s a ticking time bomb.”
But Dowless didn’t let their difference of opinions stop him from making a
pass, Sam said.
“John [Dowless] made it very clear he was interested in me, that he found
me attractive,” Sam said. “I just told him I was out with friends and couldn’t
get away to spend the evening with him. Then he said he wanted to see me again.”
Dowless took out a business card and, with a pen, wrote his cell phone number
on it.
“He told me to call him the next time I was in Orlando,” Sam said.
But if he happens to go back to Orlando, Sam won’t be calling Dowless.
“I could never abide by someone being gay and using homosexuality to be so
destructive in a political way,” Sam said. “I found John both sad and deplorable.”
Reached at his office at Millennium Consulting Inc. in Orlando, Dowless confirmed
that he had been working for the Martinez campaign “for two or three months.” But
he declined to talk about his sexual orientation.
“Oh come on, I’m not going to talk about that,” he said. “I’m just not going
to address that with you or anyone else. That’s about me, not about the Martinez
campaign.
“I’m helping Mel Martinez, who I believe in, and who is a good candidate,” he
said. “My personal life has no regards to his campaign and it’s no business
of yours or anyone else’s.”
However, after being confronted with the fact that several sources identified
him as a patron of the Lava Lounge in April, Dowless conceded, “Yeah, I go
there.”
He would not say what he was doing at the bar, and he continued to refuse
to answer questions about his sexual orientation or how he reconciles being
a gay man working for the political campaign of an anti-gay politician.
“I told you I am not going to answer that. I don’t know why you are doing
this, why it matters,” Dowless said.
Some activists — both gay and Christian — believe it matters a lot.
John Aravosis, a D.C.-based gay political consultant and activist is one of
the men behind the current move to out staffers of politicians considered to
be anti-gay.
He said he got the idea in March, when he ran into two men in gay bars in
Washington, D.C. One of the men was working for Republican Sen. Wayne Allard
of Colorado, who introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment in the Senate, and
the other was working for Ralph Reed, the former national head of the Christian
Coalition. Reed is a political strategist for the Bush re-election campaign.
“Why do we protect these people?” Aravosis asked himself of those gay men.
He came to the conclusion, “We tolerate them too much.”
Aravosis was not familiar with John Dowless’ name or his work. But he was
plenty aware of what he called the gay-baiting campaign of Mel Martinez.
“Martinez is an anti-gay bigot,” he said, pointing particularly to the recent
radio ad that likened life in a country with same-sex marriage to life under
Castro, “a totalitarian dictator who had no respect for the traditional values
of family and faith,” as Martinez, who is originally Cuban, said in the radio
spot.
“It’s atrocious that any gay person would work for Martinez,” said Aravosis.
A Christian activist was similarly surprised that the former head of the Christian
Coalition of Florida could be a gay man and be working for the Martinez campaign.
Bill Stephens, the current executive director of the Christian Coalition of
Florida, confirmed that John Dowless had been the organization’s head for about
five years in the mid to late 90s.
“Wow, that’s shocking and that’s news to me,” said Stephens when asked if
he knew Dowless was gay. “I didn’t know anything about that.”
When asked if it might affect Dowless’ work among Christian conservatives,
Stephens replied, “Of course it would, of course. But I don’t think I want
to say anything else about that right now.”
Stephens made a point to say that Dowless was no longer affiliated in any
way with the Christian Coalition. “He does not do any work for us anymore,
and hasn’t for some time.”
In 1999, Dowless quit the Christian Coalition to work as the Florida director
for the presidential campaign of millionaire Steve Forbes. Dowless promoted
Forbes as a conservative alternative to Bush.
He told the St. Petersburg Times that social conservatives were upset that
Bush was not outspoken enough on abortion. Forbes had pledged to appoint only
judges who opposed abortion.
At the time, Dowless also said one reason he resigned from the Christian Coalition
was because of his frustration at the group’s inability to push its agenda
through the Florida Legislature as much as he would have liked.
In 2000, Dowless ran an unsuccessful bid for a Republican House seat in District
40, an area around Orlando. He lost to Rep. Andy Gardiner in a 54 to 46 percent
tally.
Throughout his career, both at the Christian Coalition and after, Dowless
has had a long history of pushing an anti-gay agenda.
As far back as 1994, Dowless, then the director of the Christian Coalition
of Florida, was quoted in the New York Times opposing the popular Gay Days
event at Disney World in Orlando because it allegedly was a threat to kids.
“This whole day is focusing on sex,” Dowless was quoted as saying, “and when
you put these elements together, there is the greater possibility of illegal
activities on children or some harassment.”
In 1997, Dowless, still in his role as director of the state’s Christian Coalition,
cheered when the University of Florida rescinded a student spouse ID card that
had been given to the partner of a lesbian student. The card gave spouses of
students special advantages, such as use of the university’s libraries and
recreational facilities.
“Marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman,” Dowless told the Alligator,
the student publication.
In 1998, Dowless successfully blocked a move by the state legislature to write
the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into the state Constitution. The move
would have prohibited discrimination based on a variety of attributes, including
gender.
But, according to the St. Petersburg Times, Dowless opposed the gender provision,
saying it would be a possible loophole for allowing same-sex marriages.
And in 2002, Dowless created a misleading phone message for Gov. Jeb Bush.
The message, sent to 50,000 social conservatives in the state, claimed that
voters should cast their lot with Bush over Democratic rival Bill McBride because
Bush was “the only candidate who supports traditional marriage.”
But the statement was false. McBride did oppose same-sex marriage, and after
a public controversy, the phone message campaign was pulled.
Just last year, Dowless was scheduled as one of 25 guest speakers at a “Reclaiming
America for Christ” conference held Oct. 24-25 in Fort Lauderdale. Promotional
materials indicate he spoke about grassroots organizing among conservative
Christians.
Other speakers included such conservative religious icons as Roy Moore, the
ousted chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Interestingly, of the 25
speakers listed, only the Dowless entry did not include a photo with his bio.
Kirk Fordham, the finance director for Mel Martinez’s campaign, is also a
gay man.
But unlike Dowless, Fordham does not have a history of anti-gay political
activity, and some gay activists consider him already out.
In the past, Fordham has told the Blade that he is “out in the community but
not in the press.” The Blade reported last week that Fordham is gay.
Before moving to the Martinez campaign earlier this year, Fordham was the
campaign manager and then the chief of staff for Florida Congressman Mark Foley,
a Republican.
It has been widely reported that Foley is gay, but the congressman continues
to refuse to discuss his sexual orientation. When reports about it surfaced
during his aborted Senate campaign last year, Foley held a news conference
denouncing the “rumors” and calling the talk about his sexual orientation “revolting
and unforgivable.”
Jason Kello, a spokesperson for Foley, declined to say if Fordham was out
while he worked as Foley’s chief of staff.
“We’re not going to get into a discussion on Kirk’s personal life,” Kello
said. “Kirk was a terrific chief of staff and Congressman Foley was sorry to
see him go. Kirk did tremendous work here, and I can say there was a very comfortable
office environment.”
Kello said it would not matter one way or the other to Foley if Fordham were
gay. Foley has a nondiscrimination policy for his employees that includes protection
based on sexual orientation, Kello said.
An August 2003 article in the Advocate, the national gay magazine, matter-of-factly
identified Fordham as Foley’s gay chief of staff.
Repeated phone calls to both Fordham’s office number and cell phone remained
unreturned by press time.
Jennifer Coxe, a spokesperson for Mel Martinez, refused to comment on whether
or not Martinez knows Fordham and Dowless are gay. She also declined to comment
on how Martinez squares having close personal gay advisers while running anti-gay
ads.
She was uncertain if there was an official nondiscrimination policy for employees
that included protection based on sexual orientation, but she said that an
employee would not be fired because he is gay.
Chris Crain contributed to this story.
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