Sep 17, 2004  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

A gay former member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS has accused the Bush administration of conducting “clandestine purges” of gays on the AIDS panel, saying the action is symbolic of the president’s record on gay appointments.

Gay Republican activist James Driscoll, who Bush appointed in 2002 to the AIDS advisory panel, said the administration dropped him from the panel, known as PACHA, earlier this year and replaced him with a “safe straight, white male.”

“Gays represent at least 4 percent of the electorate, according to exit polls,” Driscoll said. “We are more numerous than Jews, as numerous as Asians, and in 2000 we gave Bush more votes than did African Americans,” he said, referring to exit poll data on various ethnic groups that voted for Bush.

“Yet our representation [among Bush administration appointees] is a tiny fraction of those groups’ and includes no important appointments,” Driscoll said.

After nearly four years in office, only 16 openly gay appointees in the Bush administration have been identified by name, and out of that number, eight were non-paid appointments to PACHA. And of the eight PACHA members appointed by Bush, only five remain on the AIDS panel.

By comparison, President Clinton appointed more than 150 open gays in his eight years in office, according to Clinton administration officials.

A White House press spokesperson did not return calls this week seeking comment on President Bush’s gay appointments.

Bush named gay Republican activist Scott Evertz as head of the White House AIDS office in 2001, his first gay appointee.

At the time, then White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the president considered sexual orientation a private matter and didn’t consider it a factor in making appointments. Fleischer said Bush chose Evertz because he was highly qualified for the post and that his sexual orientation had nothing to do with the appointment.

Not all gays see a purge
Gay GOP activists Carl Schmid and Robert Kabel took strong exception to Driscoll’s assessment, saying the Bush administration has continued to appoint gays to PACHA and other administration posts — with an appointment as recently as earlier this year.

The two noted that Bush has appointed a gay ambassador and two gays to head the White House AIDS office.

Schmid said he knows of between 35 and 40 gay appointments in the Bush administration since Bush took office in 2001. But Schmid refused to identify most of Bush’s gay appointees, saying they were out within the administration but may not want their names reported in the media.

“I have a private list of gay Bush appointees,” Schmid said. “These are gay Republicans,” he said, who were appointed to a “full range” of policy-making positions in various agencies and departments.

When asked if any of the appointees work in the White House, Schmid said, “I’m not going to say.”

Clinton administration officials have publicly identified only about 50 of the 150 Clinton gay appointees. They cited similar concerns that the appointees, while comfortable about being out to their co-workers and the president, did not wish to be identified in the media.

Many of the Clinton gay appointees that were publicly identified were in high-level positions, including the post of deputy White House chief of staff, director of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, and various deputy and assistant secretaries to departments and agencies. Clinton named James Hormel, a prominent gay activist, businessman and philanthropist, as ambassador to Luxembourg.

Clinton also created a gay liaison position at the White House and named a gay man and later a lesbian to fill the position during his second term in office.

Schmid and Kabel said they agreed with Driscoll that Bush should have named more gay appointees. But they disagreed with Driscoll that Bush or his surrogates conducted a gay purge at PACHA.

Kabel, who worked in the Reagan White House as a general counsel, said Republican presidents historically have hired gays to various posts. Unlike Clinton, he said, they have chosen not to “make an issue of it.”

“It’s a mindset,” Kabel said. “It’s like, ‘We’re fine with it, but you’re not going to talk about it.’”

Schmid said that while the Bush administration chose not to reappoint Driscoll to PACHA, after Driscoll’s term expired, the administration reappointed other gays to the panel.

He said the administration offered a PACHA appointment ...